Wrehn, The Great Hunt Champion - For A Reason
by PlanetSmasher
Summary: Wrehn, a Great Hunt Champion among the Mandalorians, gets access to the best paying jobs. More often than not, those jobs turn out to be the most dangerous. She's also attracted a lot of trouble for herself, and has had to blast her way out of many situations. Wrehn's wisdom is questioned as she takes on her most lucrative job for a Sith lord, the notoriously ruthless Darth Nox.
1. Wrehn, The Hunter and The Hunted

Wrehn, The Hunter, and The Hunted

The Rodian male sat in his ray-shield jail cell at the Limdast City, 427th Imperial Army Police Station, on planet Ziost. He hugged his knees to his chest, shivering, still recovering from the after effects of carbonite freezing.

The station duty sergeant, having verified the identity of the shuddering Rodian, proceeded to make an entry in the station's logs, while an Imperial army clerk registered the Rodian's information into the inmate database.

The duty sergeant then proceeded to transfer one hundred twenty five thousand Imperial credits into the bounty hunter's business account. The hunter felt the buzzing hum of her personal datapad and, retrieving it from her utility belt, verified that she'd been properly paid for her work.

Wrehn told the duty sergeant, "It was a pleasure doing business with you, Sergeant."

The sergeant replied, "Sure." Then he added, "I wasn't so sure, when the Dark Council permitted Aliens to be granted Imperial citizenship and all of that a few years back, but I have to admit you Aliens aren't such a bad lot." Turning to look at the captured Rodian, he continued, "I guess every group has their bad seeds," and then turning to face Wrehn, concluded, "and every group has their hard working, dedicated folks who strive to do good things."

Wrehn, knowing the sergeant, a human male, meant well with his words, replied, "Thanks, Sergeant. May you enjoy good days ahead."

The cobalt blue skinned Chiss woman with the bright red eyes (all red, no whites) turned and walked out of the army police station and made her way to a speeder where two of her crew waited patiently for her return. Wrehn was not an Imperial citizen. She was Mandalorian but maintained her independence, choosing not to join any of the clans within Mandalorian society.

She was also the only living Great Hunt champion in the galaxy. Galactic Republic S.I.S. agents, together with Jedi, had conducted a raid a few years ago and murdered the three only other Great Hunt champions in Mandalorian society. They were after Wrehn and her crew, but they had mistakenly sprung their raid before Wrehn and her crew had arrived to the gathering. The gathering was to celebrate Wrehn's victory in the Great Hunt and to welcome her into their very elite group of champions.

* * *

A few years ago, Wrehn had arrived to the hotel and casino suite on Nar Shaddaa, only to find the bodies of the slaughtered hunters sprawled all over the floor in the suite. Next to one of the dead Mandalorian hunters, was scrawled in her own blood, _SIS Jedi_. Wrehn could immediately tell that three dead or wounded individuals had been removed from the scene. She had surmised that the attackers had taken their dead and wounded with them when they left the scene.

Wrehn and her crew quickly left the scene. As they fled to their rented spaceport hanger, where their ship was berthed, they were ambushed by SIS operatives. However, Wrehn and her crew were fully alert and heavily armed. They easily broke the ambush, killing four operatives from the start, forcing the remainder to flee with the Jedi.

After launching their ship – without clearance from the spaceport authorities, she contacted Mandalore, the chieftain – king of the Mandalorian clans.

Wrehn told him, "SIS and Jedi raided the hotel suite where I was gonna party with the three previous Great Hunt champions. They were all killed in the raid with their crews."

Mandalore stared blankly for some time before he finally managed to ask, "How do you know it was Jedi and SIS?"

Wrehn replied, "One of our dead had written in her own blood, _SIS Jedi_ next to where she died. Then as me and my crew went back to our ship, we were ambushed by a well disciplined group of operatives led by a Jedi. We were ready for them. We killed a few and made the rest run for it."

Mandalore said, "Very well. I'll find out what I can, and return in contact with you."

Wrehn said, "Me and my crew want to be the ones to get vengeance on them, Mandalore."

Mandalore said, "Of course it should be you. You are the last surviving Great Hunt champion. It is your place to seek vengeance for your fellow champions' deaths."

Mandalore cut the connection.

Wrehn told her crew, "We can't let this go. We got to hunt these guys down and make them pay."

A Human male and the only other Mandalorian in Wrehn's crew, Torian Cadera, shouted something in the Mando language at Wrehn.

Then turning to the others, repeated what he'd said in Basic, "Death is too good for them, but that is what they'll get."

Gault Rennow, a Devaronian male, replied, "You know, Torian, you could save a lot of time and effort if you'd just say it in Basic the first time around, every time around."

Skadge, a Houk male chimed in, laughing, "You'd save us all of lot of time, if you didn't say anything at all!"

The cybernetically enhanced Human female, Mako, laughed and was about to add her own two cents, but suddenly became serious, telling her crew mates, and her employer, "I got something!"

Mako had been scanning the Holo-net, making a deep search through her brain's direct connection to the holo-net via her cybernetic implants, and found a clue.

She said, "There's a hit called out for us! A half million credits for our capture or deaths. The Exchange Gang put out the call!" Then she added, "It just came out a couple of minutes ago!"

Yeh **w-reh-n** omai, whose core name is Wrehn, observed with some respect, "The SIS move fast."

Shortly after, Mandalore had got back in contact with Wrehn and her crew.

He told them, "You have recently done work for the Imperial Information Service. It is for the highly effective nature of your work that they have targeted you."

Wrehn was wanted for her successful hunts. She had captured a Jedi who worked closely with the S.I.S, and had killed his two padawans. She had also successfully killed or captured several Galactic Republic government officials and military officers. It was work for a very lucrative contract with the Imperial Information Service, the Sith Empire's spy agency.

Wrehn, looking introspectively, replied, "They could have ambushed us on the way to or from the party at the suite without killing anyone else. They didn't have to slaughter the others."

Mandalore, struggling to keep his fury under control, replied, "They have wounded our honor by so easily killing our very best. You cannot let this insult stand. Our honor must be restored."

A data stream began to download into the ship's intra-galactic holo-transceiver. It was a list of fifteen names with fifteen holographic images of human men and women, members of the SIS team that was formed to go after Wrehn and her crew. The data included the image of a Jedi, and his name, as well.

Wrehn immediately recognized the Jedi. She also recognized some of the faces, as the four that had been killed by her crew when they had been ambushed. After the SIS operatives fled, Wrehn and her crew had unmasked the dead, and went through their belongings for clues.

There were no identifiers, datapads, communications devices, nor any other items that could be used to identify the dead operatives. Even their weapons were of different manufacture. No two recovered weapons were the same. They were high quality weapons without any serial numbers to trace ownership. The only clues Wrehn had were their faces.

She told the chieftain – king, "Mandalore, we killed four of those people in the images you sent us. We had to take their masks off to look at their faces." Pointing out which four those were, she concluded, "These guys, here." She added, "At the hotel suite, we saw evidence that at least three dead or wounded were removed from the scene. So, the way I see it, seven of the fifteen have been taken out."

Laughing ruefully, she told Mandalore, "You have some real good sources. That was fast, and accurate. You wanna share your source with me? I'll pay." She added, "By the way, the Exchange Gang put a half million credit hit out on us a few minutes ago. I think the SIS are behind it."

Mandalore laughed, telling Wrehn, "You know who my sources are. Make your own contacts." Becoming serious, he said, "Make them pay, Yehw-reh-nomai. Make them pay. I'll take care of the Exchange Gang."

He cut the connection.

Pointing at the holographic images, Wrehn told her computerized human subordinate, "Find them, Mako."

Mako replied, "Already found the Jedi. He's founded an orphanage on Nar Shaddaa a couple of weeks ago, and already got orphans living there. Oh! And happy coincidence, all fifteen of the orphans happen to have the same names as those fifteen SIS agents, and we killed four of them."

Wrehn said, laughing, "At least give me a chance to finish giving an order before you finish carrying it out!"

Mako replied, "I'm just that good. You know I won't hold back." Then she told Wrehn, "You have an incoming message from Rooronu the Hutt Spaceport Authority."

Wrehn said, "Good. I need a hanger to berth my ship. We need to get back there before they leave the moon."

Even as Wrehn ordered, "Put him or her on," a Twi'lek's holographic image appeared on her ship's intra-galactic holo-transceiver.

The male Twi'lek official spoke, "You have violated regulations that were put in place to ensure the safety of all starship traffic. That was a very reckless act. If you wish to ever return to Nar Shaddaa, for business or pleasure, then you must pay the fines and other penalties which shall be imposed."

Wrehn said, "O.K., but just to let you know, I had extenuating circumstances."

The Twi'lek asked, sounding unimpressed, "Oh? And what might those circumstances be?"

Wrehn told him, "Some Republic SIS agents was after us, trying to kill me and my crew. We was running for our lives."

The Twi'lek, clearly not believing her, replied, "SIS agents were after you, clearly." Then, deadpan, he added, "The fine is thirty five thousand credits, in _Hutt_ currency. Additionally, also in Hutt currency, your penalties are in the amount of fifteen thousand credits."

He looked at Wrehn as though he expected her to exclaim in outrage at the ridiculous penalties and fines.

However, his smug look was quickly replaced by indignation, as Wrehn replied, "That's all?! I thought it was gonna be worse." Then to Mako, "Mako, pay it."

Mako replied, "Already paid."

Returning her attention to the official, Wrehn told him, "I need to book hanger space for my ship, I need to get back."

The Twi'lek clearly flustered, tried to speak, "Back?! You just… You owe…. I just…"

He paused to listen to someone speaking to him. He seemed to deflate as he listened to whoever was speaking to him.

Then, returning his attention to Wrehn, said disgustedly, "I see that the fines and penalties have been paid in full. I'll book you the same hanger space you had before. The same deposit and daily rates apply."

Wrehn replied nonchalantly, "Thank you."

She turned to Mako and opened her mouth to speak, but Mako had cut her off, telling Wrehn, "It's paid."

Wrehn complained frustratedly, "Let me get the words out!"

Wrehn turned back to the Twi'lek, and asked for landing codes. Those were transmitted to the ship, and immediately thereafter the Twi'lek official cut the connection.

She turned to the Devaronian, and ordered, "Gault land the ship." To the Mandalorian, "Torian, get your heavy assault blaster rifle." To cybernetically enhanced human female, "You too, Mako." To the Houk, "Skadge, get your blaster cannon. We're going to have us a small war."

Skadge shouted, "HELL YEAH! That's what I'm talking about!"

Wrehn walked to her captain's quarters, and went into her weapons locker. She unholstered her light and medium duty blaster pistols, and secured them in the locker. She removed her armored vambraces, and replaced the left one with a modified vambrace which had a one shot flame thrower attached to it. She replaced the right one with a vambrace that had a four shot mini rocket launcher attached.

Next she removed her open faced helmet, and donned her full head and face helmet.

She switched it on and spoke a command, "Begin pre-combat diagnostic test."

As the electronics suite builtin to her helmet started its preprogrammed diagnostics checks, she detached her holsters from her thigh armor, and attached another set of holsters in their stead. Then, from her weapons locker, she took two heavy assault blaster pistols, carefully inspecting both before holstering the pair.

She had these blasters made special for her by a well known armstech on planet Duro. The pair of blasters had cost her two hundred and forty thousand credits. These blasters were capable of taking out heavy war droids. They put out a lot of energy, and had a very, very fast rate of fire. The only disadvantages were that they ate through power packs very, very fast, and got very hot, very fast.

Wrehn walked out of her quarters, and stuck her head in the control bridge. Gault was already slowly gliding the ship to its landing spot.

Wrehn, shocked into surprise, thought to herself, " _That was too fast!_ "

Worried about the ship's exterior paint, she asked Gault, "Did you burn us through the atmosphere? You didn't burn us through the atmosphere, did you?"

Gault Rennow replied, "You said, we needed to get to them before they left the moon. To me that sounded like, _burn us through the atmosphere_. So, I burned us through the atmosphere."

The Devaronian touched the ship down in its landing space, and then began the post flight shut down procedure. When he had completed the shut down procedure, he swiveled the pilot's seat and got out. He found Wrehn staring at him, quite intently.

Defensively, he asked, "What?"

She replied, her voice deadly serious, "You are going to scrape the burned paint off of the hull. Get it ready for a fresh coat of paint – _if_ you make it back alive." Then she added, "Get your heavy assault rifle, we're going in for a firefight."

Gault, looking down at the deck and sighing, thought aloud, " _So, if I get killed, I can get out of scraping the hull, eh?_ "

Wrehn had heard him from the open door of her captain's quarters, and called back, "I won't let you off the hook that easy, Gault."

He shook his head as he walked out of the control bridge, and past the captain's quarters towards the back of the ship. He walked to the metal grate staircase in the cavernous cargo bay, and walked down to the lower deck of the ship.

He made his way back towards the front of the mostly empty cargo bay with a five passenger speeder parked in the front right corner of the cargo bay, tied down to the deck with tie-down straps. He heard Wrehn call down to him from behind the safety railing of the observation deck high above the main cargo deck. He looked up at her expectantly and saw that she had removed her helmet. Her expression was somber.

When she didn't say anything, he asked, "What?"

Wrehn told him, seriously, "Gault. Please, be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you before you scrape the hull clean."

Then she turned away, walking back to her quarters laughing up a storm.

Gault shook his head, in amusement, as he walked the rest of the way to the crew quarters, which he shared with Torian Cadera, and Skadge.


	2. A Shooting Gallery

A Shooting Gallery

Wrehn, Torian, Gault, Skaage, and Mako all climbed out of their speeder and walked to the end of the alleyway. Mako had a scanner wirelessly linked to her cybernetic implants. Walking next to Wrehn, she carefully scanned the alley.

Then she reported, "No sensors detected."

Wordlessly, the bounty hunters walked to the end of the alley and looked at the shop front, across the metal plated roadway, in the huge corridor. They were on the three hundred fifty second story, deep in the bowels of a gigantic seven hundred story mega-building capable of housing hundreds of thousands of residents, and tens of thousands of businesses. The mega-building had dozens of spires pointing skywards, above the gargantuan roof top, above the seven hundredth story.

The dozens of spires were, themselves, an additional three hundred stories tall. The spires housed an additional forty eight thousand wealthy residents. The wealthy had windows with views of the cityscape that stretched from horizon to horizon. However, deep in the bowels of the mega-building, the Speeder traffic was heavy, and there were lots of pedestrians walking to and fro on the metallic sidewalks on both sides of the street.

Wrehn thought, " _This is not going to be easy._ "

The alleyway behind the shop, which held their interest, had two remote sensors in it. Her crew would be detected, and they would lose the element of surprise.

Aloud, Wrehn said, "Looks like we don't got a choice."

Gault said, "Frontal assault it is! This should be all kinds of fun!"

He'd meant that to be flip and sarcastic, but Skaage, replied, "Ha! Ha! That's my kind of fun!" Then, meaning it, he said, "Wrehn, sometimes you really know how to make work fun!"

Wrehn, became curt, "Cut the chatter, everybody! These guys ain't chumps. We mess this up, we die!"

When the speeders had come to a stop for the traffic signal, Wrehn pushed a button on a remote control, which activated two sentry defense droids guarding the alleyway across the street, behind the row of shops and apartments across the road. These were, essentially, self propelled automated blaster cannons. They were set to attack any armed target that exited the rear entrances of the shops.

She and her crew of hunters then dashed across the road. Then they ran down the block towards the shop front, which was _The Orphanage of The Most Resplendent and Most Benevolent Rooronu the Hutt_.

The pedestrians on the street began to shout and exclaim their surprise and worry over what they saw developing. They ran out of the sidewalk and into the street through the stopped speeders to get away from the impending battle.

Before Wrehn and her crew could get to within fifty meters of the shop front, two heavy war droids, of Chiss manufacture, rolled out of the sliding shop door, they unfolded themselves and immediately began to fire a heavy barrage of blaster cannon fire.

Wrehn's crew had reacted on seeing the droids rolling out of the shop. Her crew came to a stop and got down on a knee, as Torian and Gault deployed portable polarized ray-shield projectors. The war droids' blaster fire exploded as they dissipated their energy against the ray-shields. From behind the kneeling hunters, Skaage stood, and carefully aiming his blaster cannon, fired a volley through the polarized ray-shield, first at one droid, and then at the next, destroying both droids.

Gault and Torian both deactivated and recovered the ray-shield projectors, and the whole team then advanced to the shop front. The recessed sliding door was locked. Wrehn attached an explosive charge onto the door after peeling the backing off of the adhesive. She then activated the timer, and backed out of the recess, standing to the side of the recessed entryway. One and a half seconds later, the explosive charge went off, powerfully shaking the metallic shop front they stood against, and the metallic sidewalk they stood upon.

Immediately, after the blast, they entered the shop and were immediately greeted with a long burst of blaster fire from one shooter. Torian and Gault immediately returned fire, forcing the single shooter to retreat from his perch. Mako stayed within the recessed entryway, keeping watch of the street. She was their lookout for Hutt security forces, or SIS reinforcements. She watched the street clear, as pedestrians and speeder traffic evacuated the scene.

Inside the shop, five grenades came out through an open door way from the back room, Torian, Gault and Wrehn all shouted "GRENADE!"

Each team member including Mako, outside, activated their personal blast shield generators and lay prone on the floor of the store front. The blasts of the five grenades buffeted and pounded them, but their blast shield generators protected them from the worst of the blast waves, while their full armor saved them from the shrapnel.

Wrehn shouted, "Skaage, let 'em have it!"

Skaage rose to his feet, shouting, "HELL YEAH! That's exactly what I wanted to hear!"

After making a couple of adjustments to his weapon, he let loose with an unending volley of blaster cannon fire. The blaster bolts fired at an unbelievable rate of fire, and each bolt of energy blasted holes into the walls, large sections of the metallic back wall started to collapse onto the floor.

Two SIS operatives had been killed by the explosive energy bursts from the energy dispersal of the exploding blaster bolts on the ever disintegrating wall. Wrehn's crew had no way of knowing this, but even if they did know, that wouldn't change anything. Wrehn got to her knees and gave hand and arm signals to Torian Cadera and Gault Rennow.

The two immediately got to their knees and prepared to throw a grenade into the back room. On Wrehn's signal, Wrehn, Gault, and Torian threw their grenades into the back room, while shouting, "GRENADE!"

Skaage ceased firing and dropped to the floor with his teammates. The shouts of the surviving three SIS operatives could be heard, as they shouted, "Grenade!" All three jumped out the back windows or ran out the back door into the alley.

At the end of the alleyway, Wrehn's two sentry defense droids noted the three sentients that had entered the alley. The two droids scanned the sentients and identified weapons on each of the three sentients. This matched the criteria for a valid target for which the droids had been programmed to attack and destroy.

Each droid targeted an armed sentient, exchanged targeting data with the other in a series of quick clicks, chirps, and bleeps. The droids agreed on which droid would engage which target, so that their fires would not overlap. The two droids polled each other and agreed to commence firing without a countdown. Finally, the two sentry defense droids immediately began firing at their respective targets. All of this occurred in a quarter of a second.

Two SIS operatives were blasted to death with blaster cannon fire. The third SIS agent received the fires of both droids and was also killed. The agents didn't have a chance. It was as though they were in a shooting gallery – for droids. The droids scanned the alleyway for additional targets. Finding no other targets, the droids returned to wait mode, scanning the area around them every fifteen seconds for threats.

Mako scanned the street, her fully helmeted head on a swivel. She unendingly turned her head from side to side, scanning both ends of the street, looking for signs of danger. Her cybernetic implants augmented her senses. Nothing escaped her notice. Not even the Jedi who tried to Force persuade her to sleep, though he was still quite a distance away.

Mako screamed into her helmet comm mic, "JEDI! JEDI! JEDI!"

Wrehn shouted, "Mako, inside! Now!"

As Mako entered the smoking interior of the shop, she shouted, "He's coming from the same direction we came! I didn't see anyone with him!"

Wrehn shouted her commands, "Torian, Gault take the back left corner! Skaage, take cover behind the holed up wall in the back room, start blasting the minute you see him! Mako with me!"

Mako followed Wrehn to the right back corner of the shop front. The team waited, hearts pounding, for the Jedi. A massive wave of sleepiness hit Wrehn and her crew. Mako's cybernetic implants recognized the externally induced drowsiness affecting her brain, and reversed this drowsiness by stimulating her brain. It did this by causing a signal to be sent down her nervous system which triggered a blast of adrenaline to shoot into her blood stream. That's twice, her cybernetic implants saved her from this Jedi.

Mako saw that Wrehn and the others were not so fortunate to have such implants. She opened a panel on her armored vambrace, and pushed a combination of buttons. This caused a hypodermic needle in her teammates' helmets to extend a needle into the necks of the drowsy bounty hunters, and inject them with a military grade hyper-awareness stim.

Wrehn's crew woke right up and became hyper-alert, just as the Jedi entered the shop front through the blasted out doorway.

Wrehn shouted, "FIRE!"

But that wasn't necessary. Her team had already begun firing. The Jedi, lightning fast, activated his personal shield generator, and had his lightsaber up, deflecting hundreds of blaster bolts. Many of the high energy bolts began to return to her team members.

Wrehn shouted, "Fire faster!"

Wrehn adjusted the controls on her special-made custom blaster pistols to fire at maximum power. She fired a shot at the Jedi. When he attempted to deflect the blaster bolt, the energy bolt exploded on his lightsaber beam. The force of the blast sent him flying, but his shield generator saved him from the searing energy of the dissipating blaster bolt.

The Jedi, forcing his way back into the shop, used The Force to lift Mako, and sent her flying into Gault and Torian. The three hunters fell, heaped in the corner. He used a powerful blast of Force Push energy at Skaage, sending the Houk crashing into the far back wall.

Before the Jedi could direct his attack against Wrehn, she had released the safety on her left Vambrace. Pointing her left arm at the Jedi with her wrist bent unnaturally downward, she activated her one-shot flame thrower at him. Nothing the Jedi could do could save him from the stream of burning liquid that splashed all over his drab-brown outer robes.

His robes on fire, he quickly shed them, revealing white metallic armor that had been underneath his poor man's robes. However, before he could be freed of his burning robes, Wrehn had released the safety on her right vambrace. Pointing her right arm at him, again, her wrist bent unnaturally downward, she let loose a mini rocket. It exploded, point blank on the Jedi's shield. His shield generator had expended all of its energy on guarding the Jedi from that attack. Wrehn fired her left blaster pistol at him again, and again, the Jedi blocked the blaster bolt with his lightsaber, but this time, when the blaster bolt exploded on his lightsaber beam, he was terribly burned by the dissipating blaster bolt energies.

The Jedi used The Force to speed his way out of the store front, making his escape.

Wrehn shouted, at her team, "On your feet! On your feet! He might come back!"

Her crew were already struggling to get back onto their feet, when she shouted her commands to get up, however. They readied themselves, waiting for the Jedi's return. After a time, Wrehn realized he would not come back.

Wrehn ordered, "Torian, take a look outside."

Without hesitation or complaint, Torian Cadera ran to the doorway, then carefully scanned his way outside, his heavy assault blaster rifle aimed at whatever his eyes scanned from behind his helmet visor. He even scanned up on the awnings of the store fronts, up and down the street.

After a few more seconds of intense searching, he finally shouted, "Clear! The enemy is not in sight!"

Wrehn ordered, "Mako search the area for anything that may yield intel on the enemy. Skaage, make yourself useful, and look through the bodies for intel on the enemy."

Skaage replied, "Don't forget to turn off your toys in the alley. I got three dead nerf turds out there, I gotta search."

Wrehn took out her remote and deactivated her two sentry defense droids, then she ordered, "Gault! Help Skaage search the bodies!"

Wrehn turned to the task of helping Mako search for datapads, comm devices, and other items potentially containing intelligence on her enemy's activities.

After a few minutes, Torian called out, "Hutt security forces approaching from down the street!"

Wrehn ordered, "Fire a volley of warning shots."

Torian did. He let loose with a long burst of blaster fire. The energy bolts exploded high on the ceiling above the street, over the heads of the Hutt security teams that came to investigate.

A moment later, Torian called out, "Hutt forces withdrawing!"

Wrehn called out, asking, "Gault! Skaage! You two done searching the bodies?!"

Gault shouted from the alley, "All done, here!"

Wrehn said to Mako, "We got all we need. Let's wrap this up." Then shouting, so that she could be heard, "Let's wrap this up! We'll escape down the alleyway, pick up our sentinel droids, and high tail it to our speeder! Move! Move! Move!"

Ten minutes later, her team were piling into the speeder, with Gault in the driver seat.

Wrehn swiveled her helmetless head and made sure all of her team, who'd also removed their helmets, were aboard.

Then she ordered, "Drive!"

Gault drove.


	3. Who Cares About Regrets?

Who Cares About Regrets?

At the hanger deck, still three kilometers from her starship, Wrehn spoke into her personal holo-transceiver, "Ship, unlock ramp, break seal and drop."

Gault drove as though he'd forgotten what brakes were for. The view of the ship, with its painted hull badly charred, quickly enlarged as they sped closer to it. It seemed they would crash into the back of Wrehn's ship and then get crushed beneath the massive, slowly lowering ramp, which gradually revealed the brightly lit, cavernous cargo bay inside.

Wrehn started to get really nervous about his driving and told Gault, "Slow down. Yeah? We're almost there."

There was no change in the speeder's velocity as it continued to hurl towards the back of Wrehn's Mantis-class freighter. She looked over at Gault and saw a crazed look on his face.

She thought of the Devonian, with his two short horns protruding from the top of his forehead, " _He even looks like a speed demon._ " Aloud, she said, "If you want to keep being our getaway driver, you'd better start slowing down. We're almost there."

Gault's crazed look developed an ever widening grin, as he replied, " _Almost there_ , isn't the same as _being there_."

Wrehn replied, in all seriousness, "You're not getting out of scraping the hull clean, but I'll let Torian and Skadge help you."

Gault replied, jovially, "Now, that's more like it!" as he finally let off the accelerator, and began applying the brakes.

Torian didn't say anything, but he took on a pained expression as he turned his displeased visage towards Wrehn.

Skadge, on the other hand complained loudly, "I did my job, good! You ain't gotta make me do that crap! I ain't doing it!"

Wrehn shouted, "Skadge, can it! You're helping! It's that, or I'm leaving you right here for Hutt security to get you!" Then, realizing that's exactly something Skadge would like, added, "Without _MY_ blaster cannon!"

The Houk looked hurt, as he replied, "I had fun today, boss. Why you gotta ruin it like that?"

Frustrated, Wrehn sighed heavily and gave in, exclaiming, "Fine! You don't wanna help Gault scrape the hull clean! But it's either that, or I'm gonna have you help Mako with the paperwork!"

Skadge exclaimed, "But! But…!" Then fell silent, as he thought it over.

He acquiesced angrily, "Fine! I'll help Gault! I hope you're happy!" Thinking he was insulting her, he spitefully added, "Slave driver!"

Wrehn looked over her shoulder at Skadge, surprised that that was the worst he could come up with.

Thinking that he'd scored a hit, Skadge doubled down.

"Yeah, you're a slave driver! No fun to work for!"

Wrehn kept silent, facing forward again.

Gault commented, "You _are_ quite bossy."

Torian added something in Mando'a, which he then translated, "That means unreasonable task masters are not always great leaders."

Wrehn shot Torian an angry look, over her shoulder.

Gault said, "Torian, remember? We talked about this. Say it in Basic, the first time around, every time around."

Facing forward again, Wrehn grumbled, "You guys make it sound like I'm the bad guy, here. That ship is our home. We gotta take good care of it. You know?"

Gault drove the speeder into the cargo bay of the freighter, and parked it in its customary spot in the corner of the huge space, shutting down the motor.

Turning to Wrehn, he announced triumphantly, "Now! Now, we're _there_!"

Mako finally said something, "Hey, Boss! Good news! One, Gault didn't kill us with his crazy driving. And two, The Exchange Gang just yanked the bounty hit on us! We're not wanted anymore!"

Wrehn took in the news, but remained silent as she opened the passenger side door and got out. Skadge and Torian opened the passenger and driver's side rear doors, getting out as well. Mako exited on Torian's side, taking his hand.

Torian pecked her on the cheek and whispered something, in Mando'a, in her ear. Mako nodded and smiled, returning his kiss, then let go his hand.

Wrehn walked around the speeder, making her way towards the metal grate staircase, and ordered over her shoulder, "Mako, get us clearance to launch."

Mako replied, "Already done, and it looks like we're getting special treatment. We got clearance to launch in only _fifteen minutes!_ " Then she asked rhetorically, "Crazy, huh?!"

Wrehn was at the center of the cargo bay on her way to the stairs, when she started laughing.

She stopped, turned around, and asked, "Why can't you let me give the order _first_ , Mako? Why?" Then turning to Gault, she ordered, "Launch the ship to high orbit. I haven't decided where we're going, yet."

Gault, already at the entrance to the crew section at the front of the cargo bay, replied, "Sure, slave driver. Why not? Do you want me to prepare a bath and a massage for you while I'm at it?"

Refusing to be baited, Wrehn simply turned and walked the rest of the way to the metal grate staircase at the side of the cavernous cargo bay.

As she walked, she spoke into her personal holo-transceiver, "Ship, raise ramp, lock and seal for flight!"

The huge ramp began to slowly rise.

She shouted, as she started to climb the staircase, "Good work, everyone! Thanks for not getting your asses shot off!"

However, her crew had already exited the cargo bay and had gone to their quarters in the crew section.

On the second deck of her ship, Wrehn walked to her captain's quarters. She set her helmet on a work table. It had expended its dose of hyper awareness stim, and the stim cartridge needed to be replaced.

Walking to her armor locker, she removed her heavy nylex fabric gloves which had metal armor plating on the backs and around the wrists of the gloves. She set her gloves in the locker, and then stepped to her weapons locker, unholstering her special-made blaster pistols from their custom holsters and secured them in the weapons locker. She detached her custom holsters from her thigh armor, putting those in the weapons locker as well.

Then she removed her modified vambraces, setting them down on the work table beside her helm. Those needed to be serviced as well. Wrehn heard someone walk past her quarters to the control bridge, as she removed her armor.

She thought, " _Must be Gault getting ready to launch the ship._ "

She removed her utility belt and set it on the work table with her vambraces and helm. The belt needed to be serviced as well. Wrehn needed to inspect the blast and energy shield generators, attached to the utility belt, and replace their batteries.

She unfastened the heavy nylex fabric straps on the right side of her cuirass. The back of her armor swung open, away from her back like a shell, as she lifted the armor off to her left. She set the cuirass in the armor locker. Wrehn unbuckled the straps that held her shoulder and upper arm guards in place. Her shoulders and arms slipped out of the armored pauldrons, upper arm and elbow guards, as though she were shrugging out of a jacket.

Sitting at the side of her bed, Wrehn removed her heavy armored boots. Standing again, she unfastened the heavy nylex fabric straps on each side of her pelvic armor, causing the front and back to separate and open like a clam shell. These were attached to the tops of her thigh armor. She pushed the pelvic and thigh armor down like a pair of pants, and slipped her legs out of them.

After setting her boots and her pelvic and thigh armor in the locker, she unzipped her navy blue molytex mesh under-armor, from the extended neck collar down to her waist. She peeled the heavy, flexible anti-shrapnel one piece armor suit off, leaving her cobalt blue skin exposed, except for sports bra and panties.

Wrehn set that in the armor locker, then proceeded to seal it shut. Pushing a couple of buttons got the armor cleaning system to spay a mist of anti bacterial chemicals and other solvents to clean her gear. Wrehn turned to make her way to her fresher, but stopped in her tracks.

Gault was leaning in her open doorway. He quipped, "So that's what you look like under all that armor. You ready for that massage, now?" Then as an afterthought, added, "Oh, and by the way, we're in orbit. Where do you want to go?"

In a business-like tone, Wrehn replied, "Set course to Mandalore. We're gonna lay low in Mandalorian Space for awhile. Also, I need to have a face to face with Mandalore, too."

Softening her tone, she added, "Then, when you're done with the fresher, come back up to my quarters. I'll take you up on that massage, and I wanna see what's under your armor, too."

As he left to carry out his task, he replied, "Oh, how I like those orders." To himself, he thought, " _I'm going to enjoy this, but I know I'm gonna regret it, later._ "

After setting course, and walking past the captain's quarters, with the door still open, he glanced inside. Wrehn wasn't in view, but her bra and panties were on the floor where he'd last seen her.

He picked up the pace to the crew quarters, thinking aloud, "But who cares about regrets?"


	4. A Meeting, Ship Repairs, and Shore Leave

Chapter four completed with the help and advice of Chyntuck (at a different website). Thanks, Chyntuck, you really were a great help with the zingy dialog…

* * *

A Meeting, Ship Repairs, and Shore Leave

Wrehn's meeting with Mandalore the Vindicated aboard his flagship in deep space went quite well. She secured his aid to investigate the raid at the hotel-casino on Nar Shaddaa, turning over the recovered items from the SIS agents she and her crew had massacred in their safe house on Nar Shaddaa. Mandalore the Vindicated, whose birth name was Artus Lok, promised to put the considerable resources of the Mandalorian Empire and its ally, the Sith Empire, to work on determining who ordered the raid.

For Wrehn and Mandalore, it wasn't enough that the SIS operatives were massacred and the Jedi terribly wounded. They wanted the official who'd ordered the murder of their fellow Mandalorians and former Great Hunt champions. Wrehn made Mandalore the Vindicated swear an oath to tell her everything the investigation turned up.

Unlike the Sith Empire, which had been ruled for over one thousand three hundred years by the same emperor through an utterly ruthless centralized rule, the Mandalorian Empire was a loose affiliation of clans whose chieftains supported a very strong clan chieftain to lead all of the clans. If ever any of the other clan chieftains felt that the current chieftain-king was failing in his leadership, it was not uncommon for one of them to ultimately challenge his rule.

Mandalorians don't always choose a Mandalorian ruler over all of the clans. In fact, there have been many periods in their history when many decades have passed without a Mandalorian chieftain-king chosen to rule over their empire. During those times, the clan chieftains were content to rule over their own territories without concern for their neighbors' wars or other affairs, unless they were locked in a dispute with their neighboring Mandalorian clan.

The clans would unite to choose a chieftain-king to lead them all whenever confronted with a great crisis or a great opportunity that faced all of the clans. After nearly three centuries, since the last chieftain-king, a time had come again that forced the clans to unite and choose a chieftain-king from among their number. Over a decade before, when the resurgent Sith Empire brought war on the Galactic Republic, the Mandalorians saw a chance for renewed glory, and for a chance at avenging their defeat at the hands of the Galactic Republic three hundred years before.

They chose a strong clan chieftain to lead them, but his rule caused a schism among the Mandalorian clans when it became rumored that he was a pawn of the Sith Empire's Imperial Intelligence Service. Many of the clans remained neutral, while other clans fought each other in support for or against Mandalore. That was when Artus Lok, a renowned clan chieftain made his move against Mandalore, slaying him in single combat.

Artus Lok became Mandalore the Vindicated. He reunited the clans, returning strength and honor to the Mandalorian Empire, and refocusing the Mandalorian clans' war potential on the Galactic Republic, fighting alongside the Sith Empire's Imperial Army – _for a price_.

Mandalorians viewed warfare as a product or a service that had to be contracted out and paid for by a client. The client, in this case, was the Imperial Army. Although Mandalorian naval assets were also available, the Imperial Navy, most unlike the Imperial Army, very rarely hired Mandalorian fleets.

Yehw-reh-nomai didn't want any part of that. She liked running her own business, and liked her independence. As a Great Hunt champion, she rated direct access to Mandalore, but very rarely made use of her privilege to do so. She didn't want to be put in a position where she would end up owing favors to Mandalore. Wrehn made it clear to him that she didn't believe he was doing her a favor in this case, either.

"Mandalore, this isn't just my problem. It's very much your problem, too. For me, it's just personal. For you, it's a matter of defending Mandalorian pride and prestige throughout the galaxy. You _can't_ let them get away with this. For me, it's just a matter of, ' _they pissed me off_ ,' and I want to make them pay. I see it as a matter of you and I working together to get what each of us want from this. So, we won't be _owing_ each other any favors when it's all said and done. See?"

Mandalore clearly didn't like it, but he had very little choice. He had much bigger concerns to worry over, but neither could he ignore this affront to Mandalorian honor.

Mandalore grudgingly agreed, telling her, "I see it the same way you do. I am glad that, _at the very least_ , you feel a need to take some part in this matter. We simply cannot let this go unanswered."

A few hours later, Wrehn and her crew were in her ship, in deep space, headed to the territorial space of one of the more friendly Mandalorian clans. She had good relations with some clans and not so good relations with other clans. She wanted to get some work done on her ship, and she needed a new paint job after Gault Rennow had burned through the atmosphere on Nar Shaddaa, causing atmospheric friction to burn up her ship's paint job.

In her captain's quarters, Wrehn thought back to her passionate fling with Gault.

* * *

It was a fun two hours, but after the afterglow had worn off, reality had set in. For as long as she'd known him, she knew that he was a swindler, a liar, a thief, and although he wasn't a scruffy looking nerf herding scoundrel, he was a scoundrel nonetheless. She respected his abilities, which was why she kept him on her crew, but as someone she could allow herself to get close to… Wrehn realized what a terrible lapse in good sense she'd exercised.

It also got under her skin that he'd let his swindling nature get in the way of a moment of pure pleasure. Gault had the telemetry to actually think that he could get away with using her giddy feelings of the moment to get out of his impending arduous task.

Lying next to her, he traced his fingers down her back as he proposed, "What if you hired some cheap labor to get that charred paint scraped off instead?"

Realizing what he was up to, Wrehn let him have it. "You _are_ cheap, Gault. As cheap as they come, on every level." Changing her sharp tone to a sweet sounding one, she added with a sly look in her eyes, "I'll tell you what. I'll throw in five thousand credits, as a bonus for _supplementary services rendered_."

Gault was a professional gambler, an accomplished con-man, and an undetectable cheat. Putting on his best sabacc face, he masterfully hid his humiliation at the insult, and replied casually, "For that kind of money I'll work anything you want, even an old and rundown hag..." He paused, pointing at Wrehn, then concluded, just before she could object, "...like your ship."

Wrehn was actually a few years younger than he, and quite athletically toned. Not wanting to let him get the best of her, she countered, "Even if you are cheap labor, I'd still expect you to earn every credit."

Gault, refusing to rise to the bait, simply got out of her bed and began to dress.

Finished dressing, he headed to the door. Just before opening it to exit, he stopped and turned to face Wrehn.

"Let's not make a habit out of this. Doing this kind of work is bad enough once. I won't want to do it again, even for another five-k."

Wrehn felt scandalized, but before she could object to what he'd said, Gault added, "So don't worry, I won't scorch the ship's hull again."

Wrehn suddenly became unsure whether he was speaking about her or about the ship's hull with his _assurance_ and lost the momentum for her next scathing remark.

He made as though to leave, the door sliding open, but stopped and turned to face her again, adding, "And don't worry, I'll be discrete. I won't tell anyone that you felt compelled to _offer to pay_ me to do _extra work."_

Wrehn, lying naked on her bed, bristled on hearing this.

With a smile that was too tight, and that failed to reach her eyes, she promised, "I'll be sure to credit your account as soon as possible." Then raising her voice, to be sure Gault – already out the door and down the passageway – could hear, she added, nearly shouting, "You've really _earned_ it!"

Wrehn had to get out of bed to shut the door. Gault's smile widened as he made his way to the metal grated stairs and to the lower deck of the freighter. He knew that his words had struck her hard, but he still stung at the humiliation of being treated like a male prostitute.

* * *

Wrehn was brought back to the present, with Gault's ship-wide intercom announcement.

"Leaving hyperspace in one minute."

The ship had been in hyperspace, for nearly four days, since leaving Mandalore's flagship. During that time, she hadn't spoken directly to him except to give orders, and he hadn't spoken to her except to acknowledge her orders. Their good-natured and playful banter was gone, and the other crew members had noticed, except for Skadge. He was kind of thick-headed when it came to interpersonal relations and social cues. Skadge merely enjoyed the quiet that had descended the ship's crew.

He observed, "It's really been peaceful around here with nobody yapping about anything. I like it."

Wrehn watched the chronometer as the minute expired, and after a small queasy feeling in her gut had subsided, she listened to Gault's announcement.

"We're in Mandalore space, adjusting course to intercept Concordia. We'll be in orbit over Concordia in forty five minutes."

Concordia was a moon of planet Mandalore, the Mandalorian's home world and capital of the Mandalorian Empire. Nearly half a day later, after asking for clearance to land while in orbit over the moon, Wrehn's ship touched down in a shipyard on Concordia. An hour later, Wrehn, along with Skadge, was in the office of Rast Amurdo, a Rodian male.

The shipyard chief told Wrehn, "You're always going to need new paint. Overtime, you're just wasting money on repaints. Why don't you invest in an atmospheric re-entry force shield generator? Parts and labor, one and a half million."

Wrehn replied flatly, "No deal. I just want the paint job, and the hyperdrive reactor cooling system looked at."

Rast Amurdo shrugged his shoulders, replying, "It's a good deal I'm giving you. You shouldn't be so fast to turn it down."

Wrehn kept silent, watching Rast impassively until he gave in.

"Fine. Paint job and inspect the hyperdrive cooling system, only. Paint and labor for the paint job, one hundred twenty five thousand. Hyperdrive cooling system inspection labor, seventy five thousand."

Wrehn countered, "I already had the old paint scraped off good. You've got a clean hull to work on. Sixty five thousand."

Rast became mildly incredulous, pointing out, "Labor alone is twenty thousand. The paint is going to be forty five thousand or more 'cause you want a fancy three tone camouflage paint scheme. Then I've got tax, environmental clean up fees, toxic waste disposal fees, on and on. All of that adds up to almost double what you're offering to pay. Where am I and my business partners gonna get our profits from? I'm not budging. It's gonna be one hundred twenty five K."

Wrehn looked as though after thinking about it she was going to stand up to leave, but before she could push herself up from her chair, Rast tried to cut another deal.

"Look. How about I cut thirty K from the hyperdrive cooling system inspection? You'll be paying cost for labor on the inspection. What do you say?"

Wrehn said, "I'll take that deal."

Rast nodded approval, and immediately typed in the terms of the deal into his computer. Then, after getting her frequency, he uploaded a digital copy of the contract to Wrehn's datapad. After reading it carefully, Wrehn signed it and transmitted it back to Rast's computer.

Upon returning to her ship, she told the crew, "We'll be on the moon for at least five days, Mandalore days, not Concordia days. Take four days off. Come back to the ship in four days."

A Concordia day was nearly two weeks worth of days on Mandalore.

She reiterated, "Four Mandalore days, not Concordia days."


	5. Wrehn's Core Reactor Woes

Wrehn's Core Reactor Woes

Wrehn's crew wasted no time at all in leaving for their shore leave, scattering on their own getaways from ship and bounty hunter life for a few days. Torian and Mako left together. Torian a Mandalorian, himself, was sure to show Mako the best in Mandalorian festivities and hospitality. Wrehn smiled, watching as they left the ship together. She suspected they had something going on.

Skadge had gone in search of the fighting pits.

He told Wrehn, as he hauled all of his combat gear off the ship, "You and Torian always talk up Mandalorians. I want to see, for myself, what Mandalorians really have in 'em."

Wrehn didn't think Skadge would return – not alive anyway. She credited him his final pay in advance of her crew's scheduled pay date.

She figured, " _He may as well spend his money before he dies._ "

Gault didn't even look her way as he left the ship. She was struck with guilt for the way she'd treated him, but kept her feelings about it to herself. Despite what she thought of him, she realized she liked him as a colleague. Wrehn wondered if Gault would even return to the ship to reclaim his gear when his leave was up.

Wrehn booked a room at an inn only a few kilometers from the shipyard. She paid daily visits to her ship, looking in on the progress the shipyard workers made on her ship's paint job.

She was pleased, thinking, " _It's really starting to look great!_ "

On day three, Wrehn had gone back to the shipyard to meet with Rast Amurdo. He wanted to talk to her about her ship. Walking into his office, Wrehn saw someone else in the office waiting for her arrival with Rast.

Rast and the other shipyard worker stood as they greeted her. Rast waved Wrehn to a seat at the front of his desk next to where the other shipyard worker, a Duros female, sat.

Rast started, "Yehw'reh'nomai, this is Kliegga Raanahn. She is the lead hyperdrive engineer at our shipyard."

Wrehn turned to Kliegga and said, "My core name is Wrehn. You can call me that."

Kliegga bowed her head, replying, "Very well, Wrehn. You may call me Kliegga."

Rast went on, saying, "There's still more work to be done with the paint job, but we are progressing on schedule. The work shall be done late tomorrow evening."

Despite Concordia's very long day-night cycle, actually because of it, time on the moon was measured using Mandalore's day-night cycle.

Rast Amurdo was telling Wrehn, "The painting will be done early after the mid-day hour, but the paint must be cured, and that will not be done until late in the evening. However, we are ready to report on your hyperdrive cooling system."

Turning to Kliegga and waving a hand towards her, he handed off the reporting to her.

Kliegga nodded towards Rast, and then turning to Wrehn said flatly, "Your cooling system is fine, but your hyperdrive is running hot because the hyperwave suppressor coil is starting to fail. That needs to be replaced. You still have between eight to ten, maybe twelve, hyperspace jumps before it finally goes out on you, but it may also catastrophically fail the very next time you jump into hyperspace."

With her heart jumping into her throat and a cold ball of ice sinking into her gut, Wrehn hid how badly she'd been shocked at the news by simply replying, "O.K. Show me."

Rast could see the surprise in her eyes, but was amazed at how well his customer seemed to be taking the news. He nodded and stood from his desk, with Kliegga and Wrehn also getting to their feet. The three walked from the office and made their way across the huge open air shipyard to Wrehn's ship.

Centered at the bottom of the ship's huge ramp, which was in its raised, locked and sealed position, was a pressure hatch. This hatch opened like any normal ship's outer hatch. The hatch recessed into the main ramp, then slid up until only the very bottom of the hatch was visible.

Rast, then Wrehn followed by Kliegga, stepped up and through the opened hatch into the ship's cavernous cargo bay, immediately making their way to the engineering section beyond the crew quarters. A flashing amber light high up on the overhead of the cargo bay caught Wrehn's attention. This told her there was a recorded message on her intra-galactic holo-transceiver waiting for her, but Wrehn continued to the engineering section with Rast and Kliegga.

Kliegga walked to a control panel and immediately began to punch in a series of codes. The hyperdrive reactor, as tall as a single story single family house, tilted out from its reactor yoke-mount. After fully extending out of its yoke-mount and lowering vertically to the deck, the huge reactor vessel, which was a tall hexagonal container, opened up at one of the six corners. Inside was the reactor rotor and counter-rotor assembly. The hyperwave suppressor coil was a coil yoke with thousands of meters of ultra fine copper wire windings encircling the reactor rotor and counter-rotor assembly.

Kliegga handed Wrehn a magnifying lens so that she could inspect the fine wire. Wrehn climbed a service ladder to get to the hyperwave suppressor coil. There, Wrehn leaned towards the coil and held up the magnifier. She could plainly see the thousands of nicks and abrasions on the wire wound around the coil yoke in just a few centimeters of the wire. The wire, as fine as it was, wasn't cut all the way through anywhere yet, but there were many deep cracks that threatened to sever it.

Kliegga explained, raising her voice so that Wrehn, descending the ladder, could hear.

"The nicks and cracks are what is increasing the inefficiencies that are causing the rise in reactor temperatures. It isn't your reactor cooling system. In short, a fix would require a reactor overhaul."

At the bottom of the ladder, Wrehn sighed, shook her head, and expressed her disgust as she returned Kliegga's magnifier.

"Blast!" Then she asked, "How much and how long to fix?" Before Rast could answer, Wrehn asked, "How'd this happen?"

Kliegga pointed at the reactor rotor and counter-rotor assembly, and said, "Look at all of the chromium work. It's all supposed to be shiny, like a mirror, but it's all matte. That means you've been running the reactor above its rated operational specifications. You probably got a real good performance boost from it, but it greatly shortened the operational life of your hyperdrive reactor.

You still have another six hundred hyperspace jumps with that Reactor Rotor and Counter-Rotor assembly, but your hyperwave suppressor coil isn't going to last you very much at all."

Looking at Wrehn's darkening expression, she asked, "You've probably been noticing ever diminishing performance from your engines, and fuel consumption was getting worse over time, yes?"

Wrehn, in a dark mood, said with frustration in her tone, "Let's just talk about the Hyperwave Suppressor Coil, for now."

Rast spoke then, "Two million credits. I have to send your HSC to a certified HSC refurbishment facility to rewind your coil. It's not something I can do here. A brand new HSC will run you five million." Then he added, "You'll probably want to start saving up for a new RR and CR assembly. There's no refurbishing that. You're looking at fifteen million credits."

Wrehn, angry at the expenditure she had to endure, replied disgustedly, "Fine, two million to refurbish the HSC. How long to get it all done?"

Rast answered, "Two weeks."

Wrehn, forgetting how time on the moon was measured, became alarmed at the time her ship would be grounded and asked in surprise, "Two weeks Mandalore, or Concordia?"

Rast replied, "Mandalore, of course."

Wrehn, relieved it would be fourteen days and not twenty eight weeks, nodded her acknowledgment, replying, "O.K. Draw up the contract. I'll be at your office to sign it later."

Kliegga nodded, then wordlessly turned and left the engineering department in Wrehn's ship.

Rast told Wrehn, "I'll be in my office for another three hours before I lock up for the shift. I can get the ball rolling and make the call to slot in a time for my friend, on Mandalore, to be ready to receive your HSC – _if_ –you sign the contract before then."

Without waiting for an answer, he departed the engineering department and Wrehn's ship. Wrehn looked at her exposed hyperdrive reactor core and realized Rast was giving her low-ball estimates for an under powered reactor core.

Shaking her head in bitter disappointment, she thought, " _Fifteen million for a new hyperdrive reactor core, for this freighter?_ "

She realized she was going to have to shell out no less than twenty five million, but very likely much more than that, in which case, her two million credit expenditure for a refurbished Hyperwave Suppressor Coil was a waste, because a new hyperdrive reactor core already came with a new suppressor coil, which was tuned to the new reactor rotor and counter rotor assembly.

Wrehn knew that most of the fortune she had amassed from all of her jobs was about to be absorbed by this expenditure. To top it off, she fully expected to lose her crew. She expected Skadge to get stupidly killed in an arena fight, and she expected Gault to simply quit her crew. She also worried that Torian and Mako would quit when they found out Wrehn didn't have a ship to actually take on and complete contracts.

Wrehn recalled that she had a waiting recorded holo-transceiver call waiting. She left her reactor core in its offline and exposed state, walking out of her ship's engineering department. Walking through the huge cargo bay, she angled towards the bottom of the metal grated stairs which led to the upper deck and her ship's command and communications space.

Sitting on one of the padded swiveling chairs bolted to the deck around the holo-transceiver, she activated it to retrieve the recording. The familiar holographic image of her favorite bounty broker popped up, a Twi'lek male named Kathten Relmus.

The recording said, "You are being requested by name. It is a galactic heavy hitter – a _very heavy_ hitter. Except that I'm advising against taking this job even though he's promising, " _Name your price, I'll pay it_..."

Wrehn paused the recording, knowing that the timing was just too perfect. She knew it was a complete coincidence, but this was just too much. She needed a huge sum of money, and here she's being told about a prospective client willing to pay it.

She whispered in dark amusement, " _What are the gods playing at? What will I end up getting myself mixed up in?_ "

She resumed the playback. Kathten's frozen image resumed where it had left off.

"I'll assume you'll do the smart thing and turn this job down, but if you're not gonna be smart, get a hold of me, and I'll tell you the details."

The message ended. Wrehn immediately returned the call.

Kathten Relmus immediately answered, telling Wrehn, "I thought you had good sense and wasn't gonna call back."

Wrehn got to the point, "How heavy a hitter is he? Who is it?"

"He sits on the Dark Council. It's Darth Nox."

Kathten had on a look that said he fully expected Wrehn to reject the job out of hand.

He was deeply surprised when Wrehn asked, "What does he want done? Will he really pay any price I name?"

Kathten looked at Wrehn without saying anything for a while before speaking.

"Wrehn, turn this job down. Don't do it."

Wrehn asked again, "Will he pay?"

Shaking his head, Kathten's countenance reflected his thoughts as he replied, "Don't get greedy, Wrehn. I don't have any reason to think he won't pay, but he's a Sith. Worse than that, he's a dark lord. Worse than that is that he's got a very well justified reputation for killing people who let him down. Do not take this job, Wrehn. I'm only telling you this because I like you. Don't do it."

"Why? What's the job?"

"Something he is willing to pay any price for." Then, before she could ask him anymore, he cut the connection, telling Wrehn, "Take a couple of days to think this through, Wrehn. Please take my advice."

Wrehn swiveled the chair to the side and got up from the padded seat, making her way to the captain's quarters. There, she sat at her desk and went through her books and calculated how much of her small fortune would go towards getting a new hyperdrive reactor core. She didn't like the numbers she saw.

She figured that without any major expenses, she should have amassed several tens of millions before her retirement. Now here she was, looking at already spending over two thirds of her current wealth for a major repair.

Wrehn walked to her bed and lay down to think it through. She realized Kathten's urgent warning to not take the job had, ' _this is a suicide mission,_ ' written all over it. She meditated on the question, forgetting that she had to sign the contract with Rast to get the work to rewind the Hyperwave Suppressor Coil started at the soonest.

She drifted off to sleep, asking herself, " _Should I do it?_ "


	6. One Very Bad Customer

One Very Bad Customer

Wrehn awoke with a start. She looked at the chronometer on her desk and cursed a vile oath when she saw that several hours had gone past. Rast Amurdo's office was closed for business, and she hadn't signed the contract to start the work on her hyperdrive core. In fact, if she were on any ordinary planet, it would be dark outside, and it would be the wee hours of the morning.

However, this was Concordia. It would remain daytime for a few more galactic standard days. Concordia's nights lasted just as long as its days. A complete day night cycle on the moon lasted two weeks of day/night cycles on Mandalore, and Mandalore's days were just a bit shorter than a galactic standard day.

Wrehn rose from her bed. She took the stairs down to the main deck turning towards the front and center of the cargo bay, she walked through the expansive space, then through the crew quarters section and finally to the engineering section. There, at the reactor core control panel, she punched in a combination of buttons which caused the reactor core container to shut tight and then to rise up while angling back into its yoke-mount, returning it to its normal operating position. She left the reactor deactivated, however, since the ship was connected to external power sources.

She returned to her captain's quarters and began to remove her civilian street attire. She would return to bed and sleep the rest of the sleep period properly attired in her bed clothes. As she lay back to bed, she had decided to contact Kathten Relmus, when she awoke again in a few hours, to tell him she would accept a meeting with the Sith lord to discuss the job and the money.

Wrehn found herself waking again, this time to a distinctive tap on her door. She knew right away it was Mako. Wrehn got up from her bed and made her way to the door and opening it found both Mako and Torian waiting.

Sleepily, Wrehn asked, "Did you two have a good time? Are you married now?" She laughed sleepily at her own joke.

Mako asked, "Are we that obvious? How'd you know we got married?"

Wrehn stopped laughing.

Snapping fully awake in quite a shock, she blurted out her inquiry, "You two really got _married?!_ "

This time it was Mako's turn to laugh, "Nah! I just wanted to see what you'd do!" Laughing raucously, she added, "You should have seen the look on your face! It was priceless!"

Wrehn, shaking her head sighed heavily.

"Mako, it's too early for that sort of joke," forgetting that she'd just made that same sort of joke.

Torian Cadera, laughing at Mako's prank observed, "I didn't see Gault or Skadge."

Wrehn replied, "Skadge went to the fighting pits."

Torian made a face, and Wrehn, sounding a little gloomy, commented, "Yeah. He's probably dead already." Shrugging her shoulders and sounding just as down, she added, "Gault might come back to get his final pay and to clear out his gear."

Mako asked, "You gonna try to talk him out of leaving?"

Wrehn's tone in her reply plainly expressed her doubts for any chance of success.

"Yeah."

Mako was surprised to hear that from Wrehn, asking, "Really?!" She commented, "The way you two have been giving each other the cold shoulder, I figured you'd be all too happy to leave him on Concordia..."

Wrehn said, "I'll let him quit the crew after this next job. If I take it, it's going to be a really big payday. Kathten said to turn it down, so it'll probably be near suicidal. I get to name my price, though, so it might be worth it. You know?"

Mako asked, "Is there anything you'd like me to start researching for this job?"

Nodding affirmation, Wrehn answered, "Yeah. Learn what you can about a Sith named Darth Nox."

Torian exclaimed, Mako nodding her agreement with him, "Taking out a darth will put a very bad strain on relations between Mandalore the Vindicated and the Sith Empire, and we'd be wanted as criminals. I'm with Kathten. Turn it down."

Wrehn corrected, "He's the client." Before Torian or Mako could say anything, Wrehn said, "I need to get in the fresher. Then I've got to get some breakfast in me. I'll talk to you two later."

Before Torian and Mako turned towards the metal grated stairs, Mako promised, "I'll make breakfast, so come to the crew mess hungry."

Wrehn smiled, nodding her promise to arrive hungry. Then she slid her door shut.

An hour later, Wrehn walked down the stairs to the main cargo bay deck. She made her way to the common crew mess, where the crew prepared and ate their meals.

Mako spoke to Wrehn as she entered the space, "I made your favorite, fried Corellian egg toast with Naboo khabbaah tree syrup. Torian brewed the caff, so it's strong." Seeing the surprised look on Wrehn's face, she added facetiously, "Guess who didn't come back dead?"

Wrehn had already spotted Skadge seated at a table pouring another cup of Torian's caff while watching the Mandalorian sporting news on his portable holo-transceiver. Wrehn couldn't believe it. She was stunned to see him alive.

Wrehn blurted quite facetiously, "Skadge, what are you doing alive in my ship? I'm not gonna believe that you actually won the tournament. So don't lie about it." Shaking her head in disbelief, she added, "But here you are, drinking caff in my ship."

Skadge spoke angrily, accusing the Mandalorians of being sore winners. Torian, having already heard the story from Skadge, only shook his head in amused disgust.

Skadge told Wrehn, "I made it all the way to third place! My opponent was mad because I quit before he could kill me. He won! But he wanted to kill me, too. It's not my problem if the others were too stupid to know when they lost! The worst of it was the crowds were too busy booing me to cheer the winner…."

Wrehn asked teasingly, knowing the answer already, "Did you get your third place trophy?"

Skadge looked at Wrehn suspiciously, telling her, "Torian says there ain't no third place..."

Wrehn was glad to see Skadge, which kind of surprised her a bit.

Wrehn surprised herself again, realizing she was being truthful when she told Skadge, "Well, I'm glad you out-smarted them and knew when to throw in the towel."

Skadge bragged, "I beat twenty of the turds for brains before I finally got beat." Then becoming mystified, added, "The turds for brains didn't know when to quit. I had to kill 'em to make 'em stop."

Wrehn, incredulous, challenged Skadge's assertions, "Come on! You tried _not_ to kill them? Well, did you at least try to beat them senseless?"

Skadge spoke earnestly, "I'd knock 'em silly. Walk off to sit in my corner, and when the dumb scrubs came to, they'd come at me again. They made it hard for me _not_ to kill 'em! The crowd kept booing me 'cause I wouldn't kill 'em the first couple times the scrubs came back at me. Said, I was being cruel to my opponents. Said, I was playing with their honor." Then in genuine frustration he added, "Here I was, tryin' to be a good sport, an' the lousy nerf herders, couldn't take a hint an' stay down! Then they get mad at me for having the good sense to quit when I was beat!"

Wrehn told the burly Houk, "I think you're right, Skadge. They were too stupid to know when it was time to call it a day."

Torian gave Wrehn a stern look of disapproval, but she ignored him as Skadge proclaimed to Torian, "See! I was smarter than those scrubs!"

Wrehn asked, "How much prize money did you get?"

Skadge smiled a huge toothy grin and bragged, "I made a killing!" Then he remembered one of the rules of the tournament, thinking aloud, "Maybe that sore winner was mad 'cause he couldn't take my winnings from me on account that I wasn't dead..."

Torian shook his head in disgust, finally speaking his mind, "You're twenty victories were made into a sham when you shamelessly begged for your life!" Leaning forward to look intently into Skadge's eyes, he added with scorn, "It is a disgrace that you kept the victor's money instead of giving it to him when he bested you."

Skadge said, "Torian, I ain't that stupid. What you said is stupid."

Wrehn shocked Torian when she admitted, "I'm with Skadge on this. Who goes to a tournament that lets you quit or choose death, but the losers keep choosing to die AND lose their prize money – _on purpose?_ "

Mako, to Torian's disappointment, told him a bit contritely, "I'm sorry hon, I'm with Skadge and Wrehn on this, too."

Wrehn was surprised to hear Gault's voice.

"When Mako can agree with Skadge on anything, then you know the galaxy is getting shipped to the wrong hell in a mislabeled shipping container."

Wrehn took a chance speaking to him, "Well, look who made it back. How many poor scrubs did you get to clean out before you got caught and had to make a run for it?"

Gault replied smoothly, "As if you really cared about any of that." He got straight to the point, "I decided to jump ship, here. I just came back to get my gear and my pay before I strike out on a new venture that I'm going to start up on Mandalore. A very promising little deal to rake in the credits has presented itself, and I intend to take advantage of it before I decide it's time to travel the galaxy to play tourist."

Wrehn knew this was coming, but it hurt her nonetheless. She felt it was her fault, but she was too proud to apologize. Yet, she knew it was too late for apologies in any case.

Instead she tried inducements, telling him, "Well, before you quit my crew, you should know I was offered a really big job. It might be risky, but it has a very, very huge payday."

Torian and Mako both looked at Gault, waiting for him to make his move.

Skadge, back to being oblivious, asked Gault's question, "How much they offering?"

Wrehn, looking at Gault replied, "I get to name my price."

Gault arched his eyebrows, whistled, and quipped, "You must be desperate to take a job like that. What's the job and who's the client?"

Mako answered soberly, "According to the gossip on the Holo-Net, he's a leading member of the Dark Council, and a guy who killed his way to the top – with everybody watching him do it. Everybody's scared of him. He's one very bad customer."

Gault asked, "What's so special about that?"

"He's the new guy on the council, and the old timers are staying out of his way."

Wrehn said to her crew, "If you're all done chit chatting, then pour yourself a cup of caff and follow me to the command and communications section. I'm gonna contact Kathten Relmus, to get the details from him and to get him to put us in contact with the prospective client." She gently prodded Gault, "You interested in one last job, Gault? It really is going to be a big payday."

Gault looked steadily into Wrehn's eyes, and could see apprehension in them.

He wondered to himself, " _What's her angle? She's not saying what's really bothering her…._ " Aloud, he said, "I'll play along for awhile. I want to see what this is about."

Wrehn and her fracturing crew walked out to the cargo bay and then up the stairs to the command and communications section. Wrehn brought her plate up with her, being the only one who hadn't eaten, yet. With everyone seated, sipping from their cups, Wrehn forked a few mouthfuls of Mako's cooking before dialing up Kathten's frequency.

Kathten shook his head sadly, telling Wrehn and her crew, "Wrehn, don't say I never warned you."

Wrehn, mouth still full, still chewing, and swallowing between words, said, "Kathten –, I'm a Great Hunt champion. –Chances are – I can do this job –. O.K.?"

Gault muttered under his breath, but everyone heard him, "Famous last words."

Wrehn ignored the remark, instead demanding of Kathten, "Tell us about the client."

Kathten gave up, facetiously telling Wrehn's crew, "Well, maybe you'll all go in a blaze of glory, and we can sing songs about your heroism."

Skadge snapped, "Cut the stupid yapping, and get to the point!

Torian added, anger clearly etched on his facade, "We have a well deserved reputation of our own. Do you take us for weaklings or fools?"

Gault added unhelpfully, "He probably thinks we're both, Torian."

Kathten's holographic image put up both hands, placatingly, "Now, now. There's no need to take it like that. I'm just saying that some jobs aren't worth taking."

Wrehn said, nearly shouting, "I said that we would be the judge of that, Kathten. Now answer my damned question!"

As Wrehn forked in another mouthful of Mako's cooking, Kathten sighed, shaking his head and finally getting to business.

"Darth Nox recently ascended to the Dark Council. He took Darth Thanaton's place after slaughtering most of his supporters. Then he took Thanaton himself out. Before that, he was known as Lord Kallig.

Lord Kallig threw the Galactic Republic off of Taris, trashed the Balmorran revolution, and crushed the resistance against the Sith Empire's conquest of Corellia. He's the kind that does not suffer failure, executing Sith and Imperial generals who let him down."

Gault asked, "But does he pay his bills?"

Kathten, shaking his head in disbelief at the brazen disregard for good sense, stifled a chortle, replying, "I don't have any evidence that he does not."

Wrehn asked, "What does he want mercenaries for? It looks to me like he already has Imperial troops to command. Why does he want to hire mercenaries?"

"I don't know all the details. I'm still digging, but it seems that there's some Empire on Empire violence going on here. I think the Imperial Military is split between two factions of Sith…. They seem to be at odds about something or other."

Wrehn interrupted, asking, "So, he needs a mercenary army to augment his forces?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Kathten answered, "It's as good a guess as mine."

Gault proposed, "Or he doesn't trust the troops around him."

Torian added his assessment, "If Gault is right, then Darth Nox is on the losing side of the divided Sith."

Wrehn told Kathten, "I'll talk to him. Get us connected."

Kathten nodded curtly and cut the connection.

Wrehn observed thoughtfully, "If he really wanted an army, he would have talked to Mandalore, not to me. He wants body guards."

Torian nodded his agreement, adding, "So, you'll have to subcontract a few more crews to make up a big enough force to counter any Imperial troops that might betray Darth Nox."

Gault interjected, "I don't like the idea of splitting our winnings with too many partners. Let's not go crazy hiring too many."

Mako finally spoke, "I found something on the holo-net. A big time Sith just declared himself Emperor of the Sith Empire, and he's got half the Empire on his side. This isn't just some Sith dispute, it's a full out civil war!"

Gault became excited, clapping his hands and exclaiming, "Oh, wow! That is big news, and that means big opportunities to make big credits!" Turning to Wrehn, Gault asked, "How much were you thinking of gouging him for?"

"I'm going to start the negotiations at a hundred and fifty million."

Everyone fell silent as they each mulled over their own feelings and thoughts on the situation.

Mako cautioned, "We should see what he says first, before we name our price. I don't want us getting priced out of a job 'cause we got stupid greedy."

Skadge asked, "What's wrong with being greedy?"

Gault seconded, adding his two credits.

"Yeah, Mako, what's wrong with asking for more?" Quickly adding, "But I'm with you. We should talk to this Sith, first. I don't want us selling ourselves short, either.

Wrehn ordered, "Get your gear ready. If they're having a civil war, then we got to gear up for a war."

With that, her crew got up from their seats and filed to the top of the stairs to make their way to their respective quarters on the main deck, below. Wrehn returned to her captain's quarters in the opposite direction, forking another mouthful of Mako's cooking as she walked.


	7. The Contract

The Contract

Seated in a padded chair in the command and communications section, Gault had his face planted in the palm of his hand. He shook his head slowly as he worked not to laugh out loud at what he'd just learned. Torian had on a look of deep concentration. Mako stared blankly at the holo-transceiver, not so much staring at it as staring through it.

Skadge laughed out loud, observing, "Well, your ship looks real nice with that fancy paint job you got for it. I'm sure glad I busted my rump helping Gault scrape the hull clean for you. We can set up a nice patio outside and look at how nice the ship looks. And don't worry. We won't remind you your ship can't fly! Hey! Let's throw a party for…."

Yehw-reh-nomai furiously shouted at the Houk, "Shut your fat mouth Skadge! I don't want to hear it!"

Skadge laughed even harder, as Gault, at his limit, allowed a tiny chortle to escape from behind his palm. Wrehn heard it, though. She knew Gault had a lot he wanted to tease her about, but for some reason he really seemed to be trying not to let her have it. Looking at the rest of her crew, she could tell they were probably thinking of packing their gear and calling it a career. She tried to reassure them.

"Torian, you had part of the plan I already had in mind when you suggested we hire some additional crews. I intend to hire one of the _Mandalore_ ' _s Hammer Naval Group's_ frigates. The _Razor's Edge_ is not only a fighting ship, but it can house a hundred troops in addition to the ship's crew and complement."

Gault, finally suppressing the urge to laugh at her, asked, "How do you intend to keep the captain of the Razor's Edge from taking over your operation? How will you keep the leaders of the other mercenary teams you want to hire in line? Once they find out you don't even have the credits to fix your own ship..."

Wrehn interrupted, snapping out her answer.

"I'll be acting as the lead contractor, with the other teams and the owners of the _Razor's Edge_ as subcontractors! You know me, Gault. I won't let anybody step on my toes. I'm going to need you guys to help me keep the subcontractors in line, though."

Torian finally spoke, "Two hundred fifty million."

The crew fell silent as they thought on Torian's estimate of what Wrehn should charge their prospective client.

Gault thought out loud, "Fifty million to hire the frigate, and maybe another fifteen million for the mercenaries. That's sixty five million. That leaves a hundred eighty five million for us, but…

Torian interrupted, "Gault, it's a civil war between the Sith. Mandalorians are going to charge a premium. We're also going to find ourselves picking sides and fighting each other. We're going to charge extra for that. This is a time for price gouging. It'll be a hundred million for the frigate, and fifty million for just one platoon of mercenaries, and we'll need at least two platoons. That's two hundred million right there, and those are optimistic estimates. It could end up being way more."

Gault, starting to show concern, asked, "Then we only make fifty million after paying the extra help? I don't like it."

Mako suggested, "Why not get Imperial troops and pay _them_ instead? They're used to being way underpaid anyway. We could offer them a few million and they'd be excited to take it."

Gault, really liking the idea, suggested, "I'll smooth talk the Imps." Looking at Wrehn, he suggested, "You and Torian handle hiring the frigate."

Wrehn was gladdened to hear Gault commit to sticking around for this job, but she felt Mako missed a small detail.

Smiling at Mako, she observed, "I hope Imperial troops like money." Turning her smile towards Gault, she added, "If they like duty and honor more, your suggestion could end up with a few of us under arrest on bribery charges."

Skadge not catching the finer points Wrehn had laid out, scoffed at her, "Since when are you scared of bribing anyone? You do it all the time."

Mako had gotten Wrehn's point and spelled it out for the Houk to see.

"Skadge, bribery works most of the time, but when it's a civil war, everyone changes sides, and you don't know who's on what side anymore. So, you got to be careful who you're bribing."

Skadge's facade took on a look of deep concentration, as he mulled over Mako's words.

As he pondered the matter, Gault interrupted him, poking his massive bicep with his finger, and teasingly chided the brute.

"Skadge, you're going to sprain your brain if you keep that up! I need you alert while I talk to the Imps."

Skadge felt terribly insulted; defending himself, he countered, "I'm in good shape! I ain't gonna sprain nothing!"

Gault veiled another insult behind a compliment, replying, "Good! I need your strong muscles! Your brain can't do any heavy lifting, so let's use your muscles instead. Your muscles are what's important for our next job."

Skadge was close to realizing he'd been called stupid, but was easily distracted as Gault hopped out of his seat and started flexing his biceps and challenged him.

"Come on Skadge! Show me what you got!"

Skadge proudly flexed his biceps, each easily more than twice the size of Gault's thighs.

Gault spoke excitedly, to cover his amusement at Skadge's expense.

"That's what I'm talking about! Those are some big blaster cannons! Those'll come in handy and make up for your lack of acumen!"

Gault stood beside Skadge, comparing flexed biceps with the bruiser. Again, Skadge had the feeling that something about Gault's wording seemed a bit off, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Skadge gave up on figuring out how he'd been ridiculed, and instead asked, "Why do you need my strong muscles for anyway, Gault? I thought you was gonna talk to 'em."

Gault spoke in his usual used speeder salesman manner, telling the Houk, "Well, it's simple, Skadge. You're gonna show how big and strong you are so that the Imps don't get the wrong idea and think that I don't have any backup. It's not important that you lack sagacity." Poking Skadge's biceps again, he concluded, "You got it where it really counts."

Mako, shaking her head disapprovingly remarked, "You just _love_ playing with fire. Don't you, Gault?"

Straining to hold back his laughter, Gault gave a smile that was too wide, making him look more devilish than usual.

He replied, his perfect white teeth contrasting sharply with his red skin, "Life would be boring otherwise." Turning to Skadge for confirmation, he asked, "Ain't that right Skadge?"

Skadge answered, "I like working here. There's always something fun to do."

In a very businesslike tone, Mako observed, "This is the very reason why we do our jobs, because there is always something fun in our jobs to do, like taking this incoming call from a very official-looking Imperial government holo-frequency, for example."

Skadge asked, "What's so fun about…"

Wrehn cut him off, "Shut it, Skadge!" Then, "Mako, put it though."

Gault resumed his seat. It was one of ten that was arranged around the holo-terminal in the command and communications section of Wrehn's ship. The holographic image of a female Togrutan with a very aggressive and forebodingly dark pattern tattooed onto her face, montrals, and probably, her neck appeared (She wore armor with a high protective collar that hid her neck and throat from view).

Most Togrutans wore their clan colors, tattooing them onto their faces, montrals, and necks. Sometimes they even tattooed patterns onto their shoulders, arms, hands, and even onto their chests. The Togrutan clans usually liked using bright yellows, blues, reds, and other bright natural colors with small hints of white and, very rarely, black.

This Togrutan was very, very different. Her markings were predominantly black and white, more black than white, with one splash of bright red on her face. She wore black robes with bright red markings. Underneath her robes, she wore a flexible very heavy synthetic fabric armor with metal plate armor sections riveted onto the flexible armored fabric. This armor was also black with bright red markings. Her knee high boots had metal shin guards which ended in a spike, pointing up and away, above the knee.

Wrehn thought of her shin guards, " _Very handy for kneeing someone to death._ "

The Togrutan spoke somberly, "I am Ashara Zavros, Lord of the Sith. My master, Darth Nox, Dark Lord of the Sith, will speak to you shortly. Before he does, I will convey to you the proper decorum to use when addressing him."

Wrehn interrupted, speaking brusquely, "We're Mandalorians, here. We don't have or need decorum. We only need to do business. If he has a job for us, we'll hear him out, but if he thinks we're going to bend and wallow for him, he's gonna be real disappointed. If he's done business with Mandalorians before, then he should already know this."

The Togrutan remained amazingly calm as she replied, "What you have said is true when dealing with ordinary Sith lords. However, this is no ordinary Sith lord. He is a dark lord, seated on the Dark Council. At the very least, be respectful to him and remember to address him as, _Dark Lord._ I will now advise my lord that you are awaiting his presence."

The Togrutan's image vanished. Mako and Gault both spoke up, "Wrehn..," "Boss…,"

Gault told Mako, "You first."

Mako cautioned Wrehn, "Boss, don't push it with him. I've been doing research on him. I think we should be careful with him. Sith Politics is kind of tricky. He's got to destroy anything that makes him even appear the least bit weak – just to send a message to the other Sith that he's not weak."

Gault added, "When doing business with a rancor, it's important NOT to poke the rancor's hide, not even with a very long stick."

Wrehn expected Mako to have information on their client, since Mako was connected to the Holo-Net via her cybernetic implants, but Gault surprised her.

"Gault, what do you know about this Sith? What's got you spooked?"

Gault replied incredulously, "Did you forget what Mako just told us down in the crew mess? He's on the Dark Council, Wrehn. He _murdered_ his way up to that post with everybody watching him do it – _and nobody_ called him on it! He's got to have some real spooky credentials to be able to be where he's at, the way he got there. What more do you really need to know to be careful about how you deal with him?"

The Togrutan's holographic image returned.

"The dark lord has been called away to an urgent conference. He has charged me with negotiating the contract with you, and with coordinating your part in his plans."

Wrehn, getting straight to business asked, "So, what's the job?"

Ashara Zavros asked, "How much do you know of what's happening, currently?"

Wrehn asked, "You really having a civil war?" Then she remarked, "You're not even done fighting with the Republic, yet. What? Is the Republic starting to bore you?"

Ashara ignored the impertinent inquiries and comments, replying, "A civil war is a good way of putting it." Then getting to the point, she went on to explain, "Darth Malgus, an agent of the Dark Council, has committed treason. He has usurped the Imperial Throne, elevating himself above the Dark Council and declaring himself Emperor in a direct affront to the true Sith Emperor.

"He has subverted much of the Empire, gaining the support of many moffs, high admirals and high generals, as well as the support of several prominent Sith lords. Additionally, he has garnered the political support of foreign governing bodies. The Hutts, through proxies, have shown him favor by lending him trillions of credits to finance his war of treason and rebellion, and the Voss have sent emissaries to observe his battle against the true Sith Emperor and his loyal followers.

"My lord, Darth Nox, is leading the war against Darth Malgus, the usurper, but we have found many spies, saboteurs, and subversive elements within the Imperial Navy and Army. Because of this, my lord must endure the humiliation of relying on hired mercenaries to follow him into battle."

Wrehn asked carefully, "Am I hearing you correctly? He doesn't trust his own forces?" Then, with much incredulity, she asked, "Is he looking to hire a Mandalorian army to fight the Imperial Army?"

Ashara maintained her cool demeanor as she replied, "He trusts his Imperial forces to fight in the name of the Sith Emperor against those rebellious scum who have abandoned their loyalty to the true Emperor in favor of supporting a charlatan and usurper. Darth Nox, however, does not trust them to watch his back.

"The Army has proven to be subject to subversion. Mercenaries, on the other hand, are only subject to whoever signs a contract for their paid services, and the Mandalorians have a proven track record of honoring their contracts."

Wrehn, looking pointedly at Gault, observed aloud, "So, hiring Imperial troops on the cheap is out of the question." Then addressing Ashara Zavros, "How many Mandalorian warriors does he want on his – _security detail_?

Ashara nodded, confirming, " _Security detail_ is a good way to put it, but the dark lord also sees it as his personal _additional firepower_." The Sith lord concluded, "Twenty Mandalorian warriors should be enough."

Shaking her head in the negative, Wrehn disagreed, telling the Sith lord, "I think he's going to need no less than sixty Mandalorians. Two heavy combat platoons with overpowered weapons. If he's worried that his Imperial troops will turn on him at the last moment, then we'll have to be ready to survive betrayal and destroy the traitors.

"That is NOT going to be cheap. We'll have to use responsive-shielded armor – rated to withstand Imperial Army blaster cannon fire, and we'll need weaponry capable of destroying Imperial Army heavy war droids. It's going to be a blood bath."

Wrehn fell silent and, lowering her chin to her cupped hand, took on a look of great concentration, as though she were calculating the costs in her head. Ashara Zavros' image looked on silently as she waited for Wrehn to make her proposal. Mako, Gault, and Torian looked intently at Wrehn, waiting to see what price she would exact from the Sith.

Skadge observed, "This job is gonna be a ton of fun. We're gonna do a whole lotta fighting and killing and blasting things to pieces!"

Wrehn finally looked up at Ashara's waiting holographic image and named her price, "One billion credits, with seven hundred million in advance for upfront costs."

Ashara's eyes widened in surprise, but before she could protest, Wrehn itemized the expenses.

"I need to hire a frigate to transport the troops. I need to negotiate the contracts with the clan leaders of each platoon of mercenaries. I'll likely have to purchase their weapons and armor, or replace their damaged weapons and armor. That's a business expense. Finally, I'll likely have to pay a bereavement bonus for each mercenary killed in action to their next of kin. Gods forbid if the Imperial Navy attacks and destroys my hired frigate! Then I've got my own expenses to worry about for my own crew."

Seeing the look on Ashara's face, Wrehn pointed out, "If you think I'm gouging you, then consider that I'm going to get gouged by the crews I hire, especially the Mandalorian Navy frigate. According to you, my crews might run the risk of getting jettisoned into space if I rely on subverted Imperial naval forces for transport.

I wanted to charge you lower prices, it's why I wanted to bribe Imperial troops, but you said Imp troops are a no go, that they can't be trusted. Since you're fighting a civil war and can't trust who's on whose side, that's how it has to go. One billion credits with seven hundred million in advance for upfront costs."

Ashara, opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again and closed her eyes, too. She seemed to go into meditation for a time. When she opened her eyes again, she declared, "Very well. We have a deal."

Wrehn fought against her elation, barely managing to maintain a sober expression.

"Mako, draw up the contract, and transmit it to our client for their signature."

Mako, not trusting herself to speak, managed a single worded response, "Right."

Gault and Torian both looked at Skadge. Their eyes bore into him as though they were willing him to keep silent, Skadge was Skadge, however. No amount of _powerful willing_ was going to keep him from saying his piece.

"Now that's what I'm talking about! We're gonna go on a killing spree!"

Wrehn, straining to hold back her panic, used every reserve of calm that she could muster and spoke to him in a very calm and reserved manner.

"Shut it, Skadge. I don't want to hear it."

Mako spoke, "I have received the signed contract."

Wrehn's personal datapad hummed and vibrated on her utility belt. She pulled it out of its compartment and read the message on its screen.

"From: Cignos Statti Bank of Nar Shaddaa. To: Yehw'reh'nomai. Esteemed banking customer, 700,000,000 credits, Imperial currency, have been deposited to your account. Converted to Hutt currency it translates to 689,395,231 credits. Your total savings is now 754,634,022 credits, Hutt currency. Have a bountiful day!"

Wrehn looked up at Ashara's image and said dryly, "We'll be ready in a galactic standard week. Where do you want us?"

The Sith Lord replied, "I'll contact you with those details in a few days."

Ashara cut the connection and her holographic image was gone.

Wrehn, Gault, Mako, and Torian stared blankly at the empty space above the holo-terminal for a few seconds, before Wrehn finally let out an ear splitting, high pitched "WOOOOOOO!" Followed by a full-throated, "YEAAAAHHHH!

Mako jumped up and down, shouting in jubilation. Torian wore a very big smile. Nodding towards Wrehn, he gave her his congratulations, speaking first in Mando'a, and then translating it into Basic for the benefit of the others.

"That means, 'Congratulations, Commander! You have done a very great thing!"

Gault, applauding enthusiastically, said, "Wrehn, you've outdone yourself! This has got to be the greatest con I have ever witnessed in my life! I don't think I'll be able to top that for a very long time!" Turning to Torian, he spoke sagely, telling him, "Torian, remember. Say it in Basic, the first time, every time."

Skadge declared happily, "Yeah! We're gonna blow a lot of crap up! That's what I'm talking about!"


	8. A Very Cold World

A Very Cold World

Wrehn jerked her head up as a flight of four Imperial fighters' startled her with their banshee's scream, as they streaked across a star littered sky on their way to a bombing run.

The anti-air ion cannon remained motionless, neither shooting at nor tracking the low flying fighter bombers as they shot past overhead.

Wrehn figured, " _Then those were friendlies. I hope._ "

She wore her brand new heavy, responsive, full-bodied, powered armored suit for this mission. The new armored suit had builtin personal adaptive environmental control systems to keep the wearer cool in hot environments, or warm in cold environments. Calimos-Peent, a wholly owned subsidiary of Brenna Armor Systems, based on Mandalore, specializing in high threat, extreme environment armored systems, were the manufacturer of Wrehn's new powered armored suit.

In addition to climate control, her new armor also boasted intelligent responsive protective systems, designed to detect and avoid threats by actually dodging incoming attacks. It did this by activating actuators that moved the suit, and its occupant, out of harm's way. This system could also intelligently determine which shield array to activate depending on the type of incoming threat detected.

The average cost of these powered armored suits was around two and three quarters of a million credits. The high price tag reflected how rare the armored system has been seen in use, and she'd bought one for herself and for each of her crew. Skadge's and Mako's suits cost the most, because they were off sizes. Skadge's suit was huge, and Mako's was very small. As for her sixty hired mercenaries, they brought their own equipment.

Wrehn briefly inspected a few of them in the dim starlit ice field, thinking, " _It's nothing as fancy, but it's not crap either._ "

She watched as her two hired platoons of heavily armored Mandalorian warriors, unloaded crates of munitions and field portable battery chargers from their shuttle craft. Those were important. As personal force shield generators or blast shield generators depleted their batteries, the batteries would need to be quickly recharged. The same was true for their blaster rifles. Those also used batteries that needed recharging in the field.

The portable battery chargers were actually droids on tracks. The droids would follow the platoons, staying out of trouble but remaining constantly ready to accept and recharge batteries.

Wrehn thought about how important droids were to everyone in everyday life. Even her very expensive all environment, powered, armored suit was really just _a droid_ that she _put on_. She was wearing a droid that not only protected her from the very cold atmosphere of Ilum – just a few degrees above liquefying, but she was armored against pretty much anything short of a strafing or bombing run from enemy fighter craft. Plus, the suit assisted her movements. She could march for tens of kilometers, carrying a very heavy load, with little effort. The suit did the heaving lifting for her.

Wrehn, standing with her crew, watched as the two leaders of her hired platoons approached her. A long series of flashing lights reflected off the bottoms of clouds in the horizon, lighting up the entire landscape and casting eerie shadows across the surfaces of the frozen water and frozen carbon dioxide ice fields. The illuminated clouds of methane, reflecting the light of the distant explosions, were themselves reflected off the surface of the methane lake nearby.

The planet was so far out in orbit from its star, that the star appeared as though it were just a very bright, extra large star in a night sky filled with smaller normal sized stars. Yet, it was high noon – in the middle of summer – on this part of Ilum. The frozen water and carbon dioxide ice made Ilum's landscape glow, as the light of the stars and Ilum's super distant sun dimly lit up the world.

The two Mandalorian leaders came to a stop before Wrehn. One of them spoke to her in the Mandalorian language, Mando'a.

"I greet you, Sister. Will we join that glorious battle on the horizon?"

Wrehn disappointed him, speaking in Mando'a.

"No. That's not our fight. That fight might even end up being pointless."

"How so, Sister?"

"The leaders of these armies are going to join in battle, and we shall support one faction against the other. The survivor of that battle shall determine who is Emperor of the Sith."

Torian Cadera spoke up, "From here on out, Brother, refer to her as Commander, or Great Hunt Champion."

The commander replied, "I meant no disrespect, Brother...," His helmeted head swiveled towards Wrehn, as he finished his reply, "Commander."

Wrehn cut in, issuing orders.

"Torian, you go with Captain Tartan. You'll lead his platoon, with Captain Tartan issuing the commands to his men."

"Understood, Commander."

Wrehn's helmet swiveled towards Gault Rennow, speaking in Galactic Basic, she told him, "Gault, you go with Lieutenant Dremon. You'll lead her platoon, with Lieutenant Dremon issuing the commands to her men."

Gault replied, "You got it, Boss."

Captain Tartan, Lieutenant Dremon, Torian, and Wrehn were all Mandalorian. Wrehn's helm was already pointed towards Gault, but the three others all swiveled their helms as they regarded Gault's lax behavior.

Neither Wrehn's team nor the Mandalorian platoon members' helms had transparent visors. Those could shatter. The helms completely obscured their faces. To see, the helmets had sensors that projected images, along with range, directional, and elevation information, of their surroundings onto tiny screens positioned in front of their eyes. Everyone looked the same, except for identifiers superimposed on each armored individual that identified which was who.

Gault, understanding a few words of Mando'a, explained, "I'm not Mandalorian, like you four. I don't have to call her _Commander_."

Switching to a private channel, that only her crew could receive, Wrehn spoke directly to him in a warning tone.

"Gault, don't make me regret putting you in charge of these troops. Don't embarrass me in front of them again. For this job, you're calling me, _Commander_. You got that?"

Gault sighed and replied a bit peeved, "Yeah, sure. Fine."

Switching back to the general channel, she issued her next orders, again in Galactic Basic.

"Mako, Skadge, you're both with me." Before the two could reply, she quickly went on, "In a couple of minutes, three Imperial drop ships will land here. They'll transport us all to the insertion point at the enemy's command and control center. Imperial forces loyal to the incumbent Emperor, are fighting for control of this planet with revolting Imperial forces supporting the challenger to the throne. This planet has a very valuable mineral resource which they just took from the Republic and the Jedi.

"Whoever controls this mineral resource will gain a technological advantage over the other. That's all I know about what's at stake on this planet, but also at stake is the Imperial throne. My client, a dark councilor wants us to escort him and his party, to the insertion point, and to deliver them safely to the command center and to the Sith who decided to call himself emperor out of the blue.

"We'll be linking up with this Sith delegation, soon. So be on your best behavior and watch what you say around them. I don't know if any of you have worked closely with the Sith before, but they can get really touchy over the stupidest things."

Soon, Wrehn would forget her own advice.

This time, speaking in Galactic Basic, Captain Tartan asked, "Commander, you ever deal with the Sith before?"

"Yeah, a few years back, I took a job from a moff, whose daughter was a Sith lord, Vereta Fraabaal, working for another Sith that got on the wrong side of Sith politics on Dromund Kaas. The Dark Council was gonna send Imperial troops to wipe these guys out.

"The moff hired me to assassinate his daughter, to preserve her honor and to spare the rest of his family from the fallout that was gonna affect his whole clan for having ties with the wrong Sith."

Wrehn laughed, then added, "We ended up freezing her in carbonite, smuggling her out of her bosses' compound, and taking her back to her dad. He cried like a baby, thanking us to high heaven and giving us a bonus. But his daughter, Vereta Fraabaal, swore to kill us for rescuing her instead of killing her honorably, 'cause now she owed us a debt."

Wrehn laughed again. Torian and Gault laughed with her.

Lieutenant Dremon asked, "She never came after you, eh, Commander?"

Wrehn replied, "Oh, no! She came after us a few times while we was still on Dromund Kaas. The last time she tried, we shot her up pretty good, but her shield generator lasted long enough for her to get away, but we ended up shooting off one of her arms below the elbow. She stopped coming after us, after that."

Mako spoke, "Uh… Commander, here comes company."

She pointed, and everyone turned to look. Wrehn could see nothing but the black sky with its powdering of stars. She activated her helmet's visual enhancement filters, and saw three craft flying very low, following the terrain, as they popped up and down over the peaks of frozen carbon dioxide covered mountain ridges.

As the ships neared, Torian spoke, "Commander, have we been given IFF codes to screen for friendlies and bad guys?"

Wrehn looked at the bottom right corner of her in-helmet display, and saw that the IFF indicator was faded out, meaning it hadn't been activated. She cursed herself as she corrected that error. A second later, the three approaching craft, were highlighted with green borders. The others in her crew, and her hired mercenaries were all automatically updated with the IFF codes as well.

As the ships made their final approach to land, it became clear that these were the three Imperial drop ships they'd been waiting for. The three craft landed, kicking up clouds of frozen carbon dioxide and frozen water crystals.

Wrehn began to walk towards the drop ships, calling out, "Skadge, Mako, come with me. The rest of you join your platoons."

Torian and Gault followed their respective Mandalorian officers to their respective platoons of mercenary fighters, as Mako and Skadge followed Wrehn to the far edge of the landing field.

The ship to Wrehn's left was the only one to show activity, as a single individual exited from an airlock. The individual, in an ordinary space suit approached Wrehn's small party. The individual was taller, and bulkier than Skadge, and was armed with an oversized savage looking vibrosword, which he carried in his hand.

As he came to a stop before the trio, he spoke, "I am here to confirm that you are the wretches my master's mistress has hired to be his fodder."

Wrehn replied to the taunt in a neutral tone, reining in a scathing retort.

"We'll be the most expensive fodder he's ever hired, and he'll be surprised at how much damage us fodder will do to his enemies."

The behemoth, dwarfing even Skadge, stepped around Wrehn and her small party, and looked in the direction of her hired guns.

He said, "You will be overworked. We will battle our way to a great enemy. You should have brought more fighters." Turning to face Wrehn, he ordered, "Load your trash onto those two ships." The behemoth pointed at the two ships from which he did not emerge.

Wrehn gave her orders, "Torian, Gault get your troops on board the middle and right-most drop ships."

To the behemoth, Wrehn said, "I'm getting on the ship you got out of. I need to talk to your master and make final arrangements with him."

The monster, towering over Wrehn and Skadge both, replied, "I will not permit filth to be in the presence of my masher. You may,…."

Wrehn had enough, "Listen, you lump of bio-waste, I've had it with your crap talk! I'm providing a service to your master, _not to you!_ I need to be in his face to work out the details, _before_ we land at the insertion point." Pointing at Skadge and Mako in turn, she added, "And I'm taking these two with me. So, if there ain't enough room on your master's ship, then _you_ can ride on one of the other ships."

The monster behemoth remained silent. His hand and arm moved as though it could not decide whether to raise his savage weapon in preparation of swinging it down on the vermin before him, or instead reach for a button on the forearm of his other arm. After a moment of indecision, his hand finally pushed the button on the space suit bracer on his other arm.

The monster growled menacingly, "Stay here."

Then it turned away, making its way back to the ship from which he'd come. As the behemoth waited outside the airlock, another, much smaller, figure emerged and descended the ladder on the side of the drop ship. Meanwhile, Torian and Gault led their troops, laden with their equipment and their crates of supplies, up the rear ramps of the other drop ships.

The monster and the normal sized figure both approached Wrehn's party of three. It was definitely a Sith Lord. The individual wore a lightsaber on each hip. The Sith stopped before Wrehn, somehow knowing which was the leader, and spoke without preamble.

"If you are not careful with your tone of voice, the dark lord may slay you, and order your teams killed. The dark lord will allow you on his ship. Only you. The others shall board the other shuttles."

Wrehn realized the Sith was Ashara Zavros.

"You're pretty mild mannered – for a _Sith_."

The behemoth activated his vibrosword and lifted it above his head, making as though to attack, but Ashara stuck her arm out, holding back the monster.

"It is my most fervent desire to see my lord succeed. I believe that with his influence, the Dark Council shall be satisfied with complete conquest over the Galactic Republic, and with their conquest the wars shall end."

The arm she held out slowly swung forward, and her spread open fingers balled up, except her index finger, which she used to point at Wrehn's helmeted face.

"I will slay you myself if I think you will get in his way. Do NOT disrespect my lord. Do you understand me?"

Wrehn, not wanting to lose out on the remaining three hundred million credits owed for this contract, decided to tone down the attitude.

Raising both hands placatingly, she replied, "Alright, already. I get it. You want me to behave and show some manners. I get it. OK?"

Turning to face Skadge and Mako, she told them, "Get on the other drop ships. Looks like I gotta take care of the last minute details on my own."

Mako replied, "I'll try to keep in contact to help you with the numbers, if you need it."

Wrehn said, "Mako, I can at least do math on my own." Turning to follow Ashara and the beast to their master's drop ship, Wrehn added, "But keep your ears open anyway, just in case something happens. You know?"

Mako replied, "Yeah. I'll be ready to instantly correct your math errors."

* * *

Wrehn sat in the last seat, at the back of the drop ship. The Sith all sat at the head of the troop compartment of the drop ship. All of them wore space suits with their helmets off. She overheard them talk. They planned to remove their space suits once they had entered the base. They expected that, inside the base, the temperatures would be at normal settings for the survival of Imperial personnel. She counted six Sith in all, plus that monstrous beast. She later found it had a name, Khem Val.

Wrehn thought in dismay, " _Why didn't I just do what that monster told me and ride with the others?!_ "

She couldn't believe her luck. One of the Sith was the daughter of the moff that she'd smuggled to her father instead of killing, Vereta Fraabaal.

Wrehn had kept her helmet on, worried that the crazy Sith would just go after her right inside the drop ship.

"Mako." Wrehn spoke in very low tones over her crew's private channel. "You're not going to believe who's on the drop ship with me."

Facetiously, the cybernetically enhanced human female asked, "Wait! Let me guess! Darth Nox?"

"Vereta Fraabaal."

Mako laughed raucously.

"Wrehn, you got some real strange luck!"

Wrehn only sighed and shook her head in disbelief.

Finally, Darth Nox himself rose from his seat and made his way to the back of the drop ship.

He sat in the seat across from hers and ordered, "Remove your helm. I want to see with whom I'm speaking."

Wrehn lied, "This particular suit model has the helmet permanently attached to the chest piece."

Nox replied, "I can sense your fear, and I can tell that you've lied to me. Do not do that again. Now, remove your helm."

She hesitated, but decided, " _There's no helping it._ "

With a hiss of the escaping climate controlled air inside her suit, she unsealed and unseated her helmet.

As Nox studied her face, Wrehn could hear Vereta's voice, "What? No, it can't be..." Then silence returned, as Nox turned his gaze to regard the Sith.

Returning his gaze to Wrehn, he observed, "She seems to know who you are." Then he asked, "You've met before?"

Wrehn said, "It was complicated business. I make it a policy not to discuss other client's business deals. So, let's leave it at that."

Nox was about to speak, but Wrehn cut him off, "Think of how well I'll protect the secrets of our business deals. If I'm not gonna talk about my other clients' business with you, then you can bet that I'll keep our business deals quiet, too."

Nox nodded his acceptance of that explanation then went on to explain his plan.

"Imperial forces shall breach the base perimeter air locks and enter the base. We shall follow behind my forces. You will provide security for me and my special operations team. When we have reached the usurper, you shall provide security, keeping all enemies from reinforcing the false emperor."

Wrehn asked, "You won't need me and my troops in your fight with the uh…., False Emperor?"

Khem Val interjected angrily, "Filth! You shall address him as Dark Lord!"

Wrehn was about to tell Khem Val to plug his mouth hole shut, but instead she told him, reasonably, "I'm a Mandalorian. He ain't my lord. He's my client."

Then she fell silent, waiting for Nox to answer her question, and waiting for the fireworks to begin.

Vereta spoke, her voice shaking with fury, "Let me slay this vile scum, Dark Lord!"

Nox produced a small pad of flimsiplast, used to take short hurried notes by scrawling with the pressure of one's finger across its surface. He returned the pad to its compartment on his utility belt after tearing one sheet of it off. He folded the small square sheet into ever smaller squares until it was a very small and tight square. He then flicked it at Wrehn's face.

The impact the folded page on her cheek made an explosive crack of sound, and snapped her head back. Fortunately for her, the raised back collar of her armored suit prevented her head from snapping all the way back, or her neck would have broken. Her entire mass was shoved back against the seat she sat on, causing the metal frame of her seat to warp out of true.

He told her, "Do not try my patience. I'm worked up to a killing frenzy, and I could just as easily start my killing spree with you."

Wrehn unsealed and unseated her armored glove. She touched her cheek, which stung painfully. Her hand came away with blood.

As she removed her other glove, Darth Nox leaned back in his seat, watching impassively, as Wrehn applied an ointment onto her face to stop the bleeding.

Nox said, "I forgot your question. Ask it again."

Wrehn knew she was backed into a corner.

She felt she was swallowing back bile, but it was her fury that she swallowed back, and her pride, as she repeated her question.

"You won't need me and my troops in your fight with that false emperor, uh…, Dark Lord?"

Darth Nox smiled, nodding approval of her fearlessness. Even though he felt that her fearlessness was born out of ignorance of his power and what he was capable of.

"Remember to address me as such, from here on out. Do you understand?"

"Sure, Dark Lord." Her face was cast down in shame, and her anger made her voice low.

Nox cocked his head and cupped his hand to his ear, as though he had trouble hearing.

Wrehn snarled, "Yes, Dark Lord."

Khem Val snorted, and spoke angrily, "Filth! You have no power! You aught not speak as though you held power! Know your place! Or die!"

Wrehn shook her head, saying, "Dark Lord, my troops and I will provide you the best customer service your money is paying for. You don't have to worry about how much firepower we're packing! We'll keep your Sith safe and sound, Dark Lord."

Nox turned to face the forward end of the crew compartment, and said, "Lord Ashara, you've failed to convey to these mercenaries how to conduct themselves in my presence. I'll have to do it for you."

With that, he held his hand out towards Wrehn, palm up, as though he'd expected her to put something in it. Wrehn felt searing pain on her cheek again, as a bloody projectile shot out of her face and snapped to a stop, hovering over the palm of his hand, dripping her blood into the palm of his hand.

Wrehn clutched at her face, gritting her teeth and growling in agony. It felt as though a piece of her flesh had been torn out from inside of her cheek. She looked at the dark lord as he subtly waved his other hand at her. An unseen force pried her hands away from her face.

The bloodied folded flimsiplast, hovering over his palm shot into her face again. Wrehn screamed, from the increased pain. Then the blood soaked wad of flimsiplast ripped itself out of her face again.

Nox leaned back again, waiting for Wrehn to look at him.

When she did, he said, "We could do this all the way to the drop point. Have you appointed anyone to take your place, should you die? Who is your second in command?"

Wrehn realized she was going to die on the eave of making the biggest bank of her hunting career.

She decided to swallow her pride, and said, "You have made your point very clear, Dark Lord. For the money you're paying, I should be much more polite. I apologize."

Darth Nox said, "Ordinarily, I don't accept apologies alone. I usually accept them with tributes attached. Think of a tribute that you can offer me, one that will ease my wrath towards you."

A small shudder and bump told the occupants of the drop ship that they had arrived to the insertion point.

Wrehn applied a thick slathering of the ointment to the ragged wound on her cheek, plus a small dose of kolto, to deaden the pain. She didn't want her mind fogged up by the side effects of kolto, even though her face felt as though it were on fire. She replaced her helm, as did the Sith and the monster named Khem Val.

She got her gloves back on and activated her helmet electronics.

Immediately, Mako was on, "Wrehn! What happened, you were out of comm! We couldn't reach you! Is everything alright?"

The sounds of explosions thumped through Wrehn's helm as the ramp dropped down.

She replied, as she walked down the lowered ramp instead of using the side airlock, "I'm still alive. Aren't I?"


	9. The Udmanta Mine Incident

The Udmanta Mine Incident

The open and vast landscape came to an abrupt end at the bottom of a ridge of ice covered mountains. At the foot of these mountains on the ice plain, the crushed, dented and twisted pieces of armor scattered across the shattered and cratered ice field, still contained the mangled, smashed, shredded pieces of the Imperial men and women who'd once worn them.

In the dim light of the stars and the very distant sun, their blood seemed to stain black the broken fields of frozen water and carbon dioxide ice where ever their broken bodies lay. They died fighting to breach the huge fortified airlock embedded in the bottom of the mountain, or died fighting to repel the invaders seeking to breach the airlock.

The battle between the fractured Imperial military was extraordinarily fierce. Imperial troops fought with a will and without hesitation, their fierce battle only coming to an abrupt end when a flight of Imperial fighter bombers swept over the battle, unleashing their deadly payload on the battling warriors below.

Darth Malgus' forces had attached white epaulets onto the armor on their right shoulders or painted their right shoulder pauldrons white to differentiate themselves from forces still loyal to the Sith Emperor. In the dim light of Ilum's day, the white seemed to be a very pale and dimly glowing blue-white color, matching the color of the ice. It was the only way for the two sides to tell each other apart in the very dim daylight of Ilum. Yet the indiscriminate bombing run killed friend and foe alike. It was a slaughter.

Meanwhile, fifty kilometers from the bottom of the mountain, inside a prefabricated single story office building with its brightly lit interior, was the makeshift headquarters for Darth Nox's forces. The dark lord, still wearing his helmet, because the building was not heated, expressed his fury at his commander for failing to breech the airlock as planned. General Reyldah Chagreth offered a solution to the dark lord of Sith.

"Dark Lord, I have an alternative plan for breaching the base, if you will permit me to explain."

The angry Sith barked, "Spit it out!"

"I have engineering units on standby. With your permission, I'll send them in to breach the ventilation systems to create alternate entryways."

Wrehn listened skeptically to the general's plan, becoming doubtful it would work. She became impressed that her client was not some mere politician when he expressed his own skepticism, illustrating his battlefield knowledge, as he berated the general.

"These ventilation systems are protected with automated blaster cannon turrets throughout the system, and the defenders have probably booby trapped every ventilation system leading to the outside by now! Any ventilation conduit large enough to allow passage has probably been rigged to be collapsed. This is why the plan was to breech the main airlock, and you have failed!"

The general replied, speaking crisply, to hide her fear, "It is why engineers are the main focus of the assault. They will clear out the automated blaster cannon turrets and neutralize any booby traps and demolitions that we come across."

Wrehn had gathered her subordinate leaders for an impromptu conference.

Speaking on her command channel so that the Imperials would not hear, she said, "There's no way anyone's getting in through the airlock," pointing a thumb over her shoulder at Darth Nox, she added, "and I agree with him about the ventilation systems."

Nox had the tip of his blazing deep red lightsaber pointed at the general's fear ridden face, hidden behind the visor of her helmet, as she desperately attempted to convince him of her plan, but he seemed to become aware of Wrehn and her small group huddling together, seemingly with their own agenda.

Wrehn asked her team of leaders, "Any ideas?"

Captain Tartan, spoke a short phrase, "Udmanta mine incident."

Wrehn had no idea what that was, asking, "Huh? What's that?"

Torian, nodding approval at what Tartan referenced, explained.

"The Udmanta mine incident. Nearly a hundred years ago, a mutiny occurred on Hethem'cour Two, in the Mandalorian Sector. The leaders of the mutiny barricaded themselves in one of the deeper mines. Callan Hadraah, the chieftain of clan Ormourh ordered a shaped antimatter demolition charge be set on the mountain over the mine.

"The charge was set off, and most of the mine was collapsed. Fissures were opened in the mountain that led to parts of the mine that hadn't collapsed. He sent sweeper teams down with orders to clean out the remaining mutineers."

Wrehn turned to Mako, "Get me schematics for this base." Turning to Gault, "See if you can smooth talk some of the engineers into giving us a shaped antimatter charge so that we can blow out a big chunk of the mountain. Maybe we can blast a hole and create our own entryway." Turning to Torian, she asked, "What do you think?"

"Commander, listening to the general and her subordinates, it seems they were trying to gain access by subverting the locking mechanisms and bypassing the security systems. They should have just blasted the airlock clean off."

Wrehn's party hadn't noticed that Nox was listening in on their conference. None of them imagined that his Imperial forces had the wherewithal to crack Mandalorian codes and decrypt their signals. The Imperial Army had been listening in on their conversations since her group landed on Ilum, waiting for Nox's arrival at the meeting place.

With Nox's attention momentarily taken from the general, she breathed a sigh of relief as sweat rolled down her face under her armored helmet. She thanked the stars that the dark lord had deactivated his weapon and stopped paying attention to her, even if she knew that she would eventually return to his focus.

Torian continued with his analysis. "The rubble would have to be cleared, but the cryogenically cold air would be unbreathable, and would catch the defenders inside by surprise. Many of them would freeze to death before they could get into all environment protective armor."

Darth Nox turned to his general and asked, "Have you not tried simply blowing off the door?"

The general replied, "To keep in compliance with the dark lord's requirement of preserving the…"

Nox cut in, angrily shouting, "Forget that! Just get me inside!"

General Reyldah Chagreth snapped a salute, stomped her boot and replied with military crispness, "Yes, Dark Lord!"

She turned about and began to shout new orders, "Colonel Fruntz…,"

The general never got to complete her orders. She collapsed dead onto the floor of the unheated prefabricated office, when Darth Nox's saber burned through the back of her armor and then through her heart.

The dark lord spoke after watching her lifeless armored corpse become still on the floor.

"Colonel Fruntz, who is in command with this failure now out of my way?"

Snapping to attention, crisply saluting, and stomping his boot, the colonel replied, "I am, Dark Lord, until headquarters sends her replacement."

Nox replied, "Good. While we wait for her replacement, get your troops to blow that airlock out of my way."

"As you wish, Dark Lord!"

Darth Nox walked out of the dead general's command center. The beast, Khem Val, and two other Sith followed him out. Three Sith remained behind.

When the doors slid shut behind the retreating party of Sith lords, Ashara Zavros, one of the three Sith who remained, began to berate the officers.

"Fools! What sort of imbeciles would continue to send limited assets, over and again, to needless destruction while following a failed plan?! General Chagreth deserved her execution! She lacked the vision to see that a plan had failed. She lacked the imagination to quickly try a new approach. She lacked the courage to inform the dark lord that the plan had failed and that a new approach was required!

"Her failure is not that she lost the battle. Her failure was that she kept following the same failed plan and wasted precious resources! Her cowardice kept her from telling Darth Nox early on of the need for a new approach. Do not follow her example, and do not disappoint the dark lord again!"

One of the two Sith spoke up, thinking to deride Ashara and embarrass her before the Imperial officers and to belittle her before the other Sith lord.

"What does it matter how many of these fodder die? It is their duty to die if needed. We can always order their replacements." He smirked, adding, "Or did the sight of so many bloodied and mangled corpses disturb you?"

Ashara whirled to face him, took two steps to get in his face with a finger pointed at his nose.

"The Empire is at civil war! What reinforcements will we get, and from where? Where ever the Emperor's loyal servants are, they are facing the traitorous scum who have opted to follow the usurper! There are no reinforcements to be had! Even if reinforcements were to come, how would we know what side they had come to support?! The loyal forces we have here are ALL THAT WE CAN DEPEND ON! We cannot afford to be wasteful!"

With his voice shaking in fury and his teeth clenched, he told Ashara, "Get your filthy alien hand away from my face!"

Ashara snarled, "Make me!"

The Sith went for his lightsaber, Ashara used her other hand to shove him away, using The Force to send him flying into the back wall of the makeshift headquarters. She drew her lightsabers, igniting them both, and stood at the ready.

The Sith lord hadn't even ignited his weapon before he found himself slamming into the wall and getting the wind knocked out of him. His dropped weapon had clattered to the floor and skittered to the side of the room and under a desk. He looked about for his weapon. Ashara pointed towards the desk with the menacingly humming beam of one of one of her weapons.

Speaking caustically, he spat out his words at her.

"Your arrogance shall be your undoing, alien trash!"

He reached for the desk, and tried to move it with The Force, intending to throw it at Ashara, but she countered, using The Force to keep the desk in place. This struggle caused the desk to shake, bounce, groan, and warp out of shape, as the two Sith fought for control of the desk.

Ashara used her other hand to focus as she used The Force to lift her opponent into the air and then throw him onto the desk for which they had struggled to control. He crashed off of the desk top, causing it to cave in. Bouncing off the ruined desk, he slammed into the other wall with a resounding crash.

Ashara used The Force to send the ruined metal desk sliding to the other side of the Office, causing the Imperial officers, men and women, to scatter as she leapt into the air at the other Sith, lying on the floor winded and on his back. He struggled to get up, but saw Ashara in the air, both lightsabers pointed towards him like daggers.

It was too late for him. Both sabers, one bright red, the other bright blue plunged into the floor, on either side of his helmeted head.

Ashara's tattooed face was twisted in fury, but was hidden from view by her own helmet, as she spoke in a low but very menacing tone, "I would kill you, but my lord needs you alive to face Malgus. We can finish this, if you wish, after Malgus is dead."

The Sith lord was shamed. He sought to humiliate the Togrutan female but instead found himself brought low. The other Sith finally spoke.

"This is what happens when you underestimate your opponents, and overestimate your own power."

The defeated Sith was further shamed, as the other Sith added, "Lord Ashara, he can't be of any use to the dark lord if he can so easily be beaten. Are you sure we need to keep him?"

Ashara deactivated her weapons and stepped back from her beaten opponent.

To the officers, she commanded, "Get to work! The dark lord will not tolerate another failure from you." To the beaten opponent, "You have better prove your worth when we face Malgus and his treasonous followers."

Turning towards Wrehn and walking towards her, Ashara remarked, "I'm surprised you still live. Perhaps he has kept you on a whim. Keep your eyes on the back of your head opened. Remember, _this time_ , to keep your tongue in check."

With this warning, and after watching how Nox had unhesitatingly killed his general, Wrehn realized that her client was not at all hesitant about ruthlessly removing incompetents and failures from his path. She realized that he was quite arbitrary about who he decided to execute or to spare from his wrath.

Ashara told the two Sith who remained with her, "Follow me. We must report to the Dark Lord. He will have orders for us."

Wrehn, her crew and the Imperial officers present, silently watched as the three Sith left the control center.

Switching to her crew's private channel, Wrehn warned her crew.

"Hey guys. Keep on your toes and on your best behavior. I may have pissed off our client during the ride here on the drop ships. He may be waiting until after the mission to take us out. If that happens, then it's gonna get tricky. Got it?"

Gault was unsurprised, yet he shook his head in disapproval. Torian made a pained expression, which no one saw behind his helmet visor. Mako whistled her forlorn worries. However, Skadge was more optimistic on his take of the situation.

"Well, this'll make our job more fun!"

Lieutenant Dremon asked Gault, "What has happened?"

Gault replied in a brightly enthusiastic tone, "You remember her advice to be on our best behavior and to watch what we say around the Sith? Well, she wasn't on her best behavior and may have not watched what she said around the Sith. So, we may have trouble with them later. It's nothing to worry about. No trouble at all. Just a mere inconvenience, a minor setback, an…."

"Can it, Gault!"

Wrehn didn't like Gault's way of glibly ridiculing her errors.

"… error only a novice would make," Gault concluded, glibly.

Gault couldn't see Wrehn's face under her helmet, but he imagined that she was scowling at him. He snickered at her discomfort.

Wrehn couldn't see Gault's face under his helmet, but she imagined that he was giggling and making faces at her expense. It angered her greatly that she was bothered by this.

Getting to business, Gault reported, "Commander, it's a no go on the request for a shaped anti-matter charge."

Wrehn was somewhat surprised, asking, "Really? What did they say?"

"They laughed at me and asked if I was kidding. When I told them I was serious, they laughed even harder."

Wrehn got on the Imperial command channel, asking, "Who's the ordnance officer?"

A gruff Imperial Basic accented male voice came back, imperiously challenging, "Who is it that thinks she needs to know?"

"Yehw'reh'nomai. I'm leading the mercenary forces hired directly by Darth Nox for special operations under his direct command."

Much less imperiously, and much more politely, "What can I do for you, Yehw'reh'nomai?"

"I need demolitions. Specifically, I need a shaped anti-matter charge."

"I can't give you one of those. We need to capture that base, not turn it into a crater."

"I want to make a crater next to the base, so that I can knock a hole into one of the walls on the lower levels and make my own entrance."

Silence followed for several long minutes before the gruff Imperial male's voice finally came back.

"Imperial combat engineers will carry out the demolitions. You must report to Darth Nox for orders."

"Yeah, sure," Wrehn replied dryly, adding, "I hope you get a promotion for my idea."

The gruff voice replied, "You have my sincerest thanks."

Torian groused, "That was dishonorable of them, Commander."

Wrehn replied to the gruff Imperial ordnance officer, "I've got another idea for you to steal. When that charge goes off, it'll shake the base so badly, they'll be disoriented for some time. Use that time to blast the main air lock off, and take that opportunity to enter the ventilation systems, to make several inroads with your troops so that you can capture the base."

Captain Tartan nodded great approval of her plan, as did Torian.

In a very sincere tone, the gruff Imperial said, "Thank you, Yehw'reh'nomai. You may have saved us from mass executions with these recommendations. If we succeed here, then only a few of us senior officers will die for our earlier failure instead of the entire command."

Wrehn was taken aback by that comment. She wondered whether Nox would actually do something so excessive. Instead of asking, however, she thought about what that meant for her and her mercenaries after the battle. She began to realize just how ungratefully ruthless her client really was from that short exchange. Wrehn recalled all of the warnings her bounty broker, Kathten Relmus, had given not to take the job. Just as soon as his warnings popped into her mind, however, she pushed those thoughts aside, recalling instead what her payday was going to be – _if_ she survived.

Returning to her not as private as she thought channel, she spoke to her team.

Gault, Torian, I want you to get together with Captain Tartan and Lieutenant Dremon and come up with an escape plan for after we complete the mission, in case Darth Nox turns on us."

Skadge complained, "Why are you already thinking of running away? There's only seven of 'em, and more than sixty of us!"

Wrehn turned to Skadge and said, "Skadge…. If you say one more word, I'm firing you without pay and without getting to join the fight. And I'm leaving you here on Ilum."

Skadge opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it without uttering another word. He didn't want to miss out on the fight. It promised to be so much fun...


	10. Yehw'reh'nomai's Battle Plan

Yehw'reh'nomai's Battle Plan

The following day, Darth Nox, in his silver toned, lightly armored space suit, stood on a bare patch of rock at the summit of a ridge of carbon dioxide ice covered mountains. Through his helmet visor display screen, he gazed up at the black, star littered late morning sky, with the bright and perfectly round disk of Ilum's star dominating all of the other bright stars around it. The disk of Ilum's star seemed to be the size of a tiny grain of gravel in the black sky, but it shown as brightly as a light probe in a cavernous space, dimly lighting up the ice covered landscape with an eerie blue-white glow from horizon to horizon.

He brought his gaze down from the sky, turning it to his right. There he looked at the heavily armored Mandalorian mercenary that his wife and apprentice, Ashara Zavros, had recommended to him and then hired at enormous expense.

The Mandalorian and her inner circle of four others wore the same model armored suit which, when viewed in proper lighting, was mostly white with sea blue accents and markings. Though, in the dim starlight, their suits appeared to glow dimly in a blue-white hue with black accents and markings.

Nox reflected that Yehw'reh'nomai's armor contrasted sharply with what the rest of the Mandalorians wore. They wore armor that was bronze colored with green accents and markings, but which appeared to be dark shades of grey in the dim daylight of Ilum. He understood that this lack of uniformity in their armor, weapons, and even in their allegiances, was owed to the fact that Mandalorians were a fragmented feudalistic society that rallied around a very powerful leader, as long as there was a collective need for such leadership.

He tried to reconcile the Mandalorians' ways with how the Sith viewed their own place within the Sith Empire, concluding, " _Even I cannot trust my followers to remain loyal to me, to the bitter end, if I cannot demonstrate my power over my enemies. If my followers saw me as being weak, they would abandon me to my powerful foes._ "

Noting the time, in tiny red numerals on the left side of the display screen in his helmet, he remarked to his contractor, on the restricted command channel, "We shall see if your plan will work, Yehw'reh'nomai." He turned his gaze out to the horizon, in front of him, and spoke a single worded command on the general command channel.

"Attack."

Wrehn was greatly surprised by his remarks to her.

She asked herself, " _How did he know it was my plan?_ "

As the eerie dim world exploded into a brilliant white light, which was magnified by the reflective white surfaces of the frozen water ice and the frozen carbon dioxide ice, covering nearly the entire landscape, Wrehn began to wonder if she had wrongly accused the Imperial officers of taking credit for her idea. She wondered if pride prevented the gruff sounding Imperial ordnance officer from defending himself from her assertions the previous day.

Her eyes were blasted with the brilliant white glare from her optical display, as she thought, " _Maybe he thought it was beneath him to tell me off_..." Then she thought, " _But he thanked me for giving them a plan that would save some of their necks. They had to have taken credit for it._ "

The automatic filters of her optical and sensor arrays adjusted the lighting levels of the display screen inside her helmet. She was now able to make out the super white hot fireball that roiled its way up, as anti-matter and matter combined in the shaped charge to blast a focused jet of explosive energy into the ground about one kilometer from the side of the underground base.

She abandoned her line of thought as she beheld the spectacle that was the effects of a shaped anti-matter cratering charge. Along with the rising white fireball, a lake's worth of water ice melted and was hurled outward in all directions in the form of steam. The frozen carbon dioxide instantly ablated into its gaseous form, sending out a wave of very, very hot compressed gas, right behind the blast of superheated compressed water vapor, which melted or blew flat everything that wasn't solid rock. A mountain's worth of frozen accumulated space dust and solid basalt bed rock was also hurled into the sky as though a giant volcano had erupted explosively.

Darth Nox spoke on the general command channel, "Colonel Fruntz, a change of plans. Wait until the dust and rocks come back down before attacking the airlock. You may actually need to dig out the airlock once the dust and rock has settled back down again."

Colonel Fruntz was General Reyldah Chagreth's executive officer but was now in command in her stead.

It was painfully obvious, what he needed to do, but he respectfully replied, "As you say, Dark Lord."

The world began to shake under Wrehn's feet. She became greatly relieved that she and her party stood on exposed solid rock, barren of any ice. She watched the ice sheets below her, on the face of the mountain, shatter into giant shards which then raced down the mountain's face. The racing shards almost instantly degraded into billowing clouds of powder, cascading down the mountain slope in an enormous avalanche.

She, and everyone around her, were caught off guard when a blast of frozen water crystals, carried by a wave of carbon dioxide gas, which was itself already crystallizing into ice, blew her and her entire party backwards onto their backs. The shockwave, accompanying the waves of water crystals and of the crystallizing carbon dioxide gas, also brought with it an enormously gigantic clap of thunder that, for an instant, compressed her body – even within the protection of her powered armored suit. The thunder rolled on and on and on, echoing across the entire landscape and causing a fresh round of avalanches throughout the region.

Then the winds changed directions. The frozen carbon dioxide and water ice crystals were driven by an enormous wind, pulled in by the partial vacuum that was created at ground zero.

Wrehn struggled to stop her tumbling across the black basalt rock, after having been tossed, first away from and then towards the blast. She feared getting blown off the mountain, but instead found herself scrambling back onto her feet. Her ears were wringing, and she felt as though she'd been hit with a giant hammer.

Immediately after getting back onto her feet, she got on the channel to her team, ordering, "Platoon leaders, take roll of your troops! Figure out if any of your people got knocked off the mountain!"

Her officers all replied, nearly in unison, "Yes, Commander!"

Wrehn looked about in the waning light of the rising fireball, and found both Skadge and Mako checking each other's powered armored suits for damage. Looking about some more, she found her client, Darth Nox and his Sith followers in various states of recovery.

Darth Nox laughed and remarked to Wrehn, "Ha! I rather enjoyed that, Yehw'reh'nomai!"

Wrehn, forgetting herself, quipped, "Yeah, I had a real blast! We ought to do that again, sometime."

Belatedly, she added, "Uh…, Dark Lord."

Nox pointed at her, observing, "Good! You're learning."

Wrehn remained silent, not trusting herself to speak. Her pride was hurt, and she was angry at how she'd been so easily cowed by her client. She knew her stubbornness would surely have gotten in the way of good sense and gotten her to say what she really felt. Yet, Wrehn contemplated whether his good humor was a sign that she and her crew might be in the clear of his malevolent need to punish those who ran afoul of his wrath, which Wrehn realized seemed to be a very easy thing to do.

She reflected, thinking of the Imperial Army ordnance officer's comments and of General Reyldah Chagreth's execution at his very own hands. However, before she could think anymore on what Nox's good mood meant for her team, Mako's worry filled voice cut in via her team's private channel.

"Wrehn, we've got, maybe half a minute before we get pummeled by the falling rock from that blast. We need to move."

Wrehn spoke on Nox's restricted command channel, "Dark Lord, we got to get back onto our dropships and move, rocks are about to fall on our heads!"

She didn't wait for her client's reply as she quickly switched back to her team's channel, shouting, "Mandalorians! Get on your dropships; we're leaving, now!"

There was no hesitation. No questions were asked, as her two platoons of mercenaries rushed quickly back to their ships. The pilots had already been warned, and were readying their ships for a hurried launch.

The ramp wasn't even raised, and Wrehn hadn't even taken her seat when the dropship sprang into the air and rocketed away from the epicenter. The ships were not fast enough, though. A few clods of frozen dust, and rocks big enough to hold in both hands, struck the hulls of the three fleeing ships. Inside, the troop compartment sounded like being on the inside of a drum, even through their helmets.

Wrehn had finally taken a seat and began to scan the interior of the dropship. She began to wonder how many troops she had lost.

She called out, "Platoon leaders, give me a head count!"

Switching to her private channel, she called out, the names of her crew.

"Mako!"

"Yeah?"

"Torian!"

"Commander?"

"Gault!"

"Present."

"Skadge!"

No answer.

"Skadge!"

Still no answer.

"SKADGE! ANSWER ME, BLAST YOU!"

"Why you gotta call my name last? What, I'm not a good enough team mate for you?"

Wrehn surprised herself with how relieved she was that the Houk was still accounted for. She wasn't going to show him this soft spot which she just realized she had for him, however. It was almost motherly...

"Skadge, I was just worried that I had just got done spending over two million credits for your armored suit, and that I was already assed out of those credits without getting any use out of it."

Mako burst out laughing, remarking, "Damn, Wrehn! That was just so mean!" She laughed some more, then asked, "Hey Skadge, you gonna take that?"

Skadge had fallen silent again.

Mako, becoming concerned over his silence, asked, "Skadge, you're not letting what she said get to you, huh?

Gault cut in deadpan, but his sarcasm was thick, "Shhhhh! Let him think, Mako."

After a bit of silence, Skadge had his retort.

"At least we all know whose starship don't work!"

Gault burst out laughing, hard, on hearing what the Houk had said. Not because of what was said, but because his sarcastic jibe, about Skadge needing time to think had turned out to be true.

After finally catching his breath, he told the cybernetically enhanced human female, "You see, Mako? Give him some time to let those gears turn. A thought will eventually be produced!" He laughed again.

Skadge, unsure whether he was being insulted, protested weakly.

"Hey, wait a minute, Gault. What are you trying to say?"

Gault deflected and lied, telling the Houk, "You came up with a great come-back, Skadge!"

Wrehn shook her head, grinning inside of her helmet at the humor of the moment, but she didn't want to let stand Skadge's retort. She was about to speak, when she finally noticed the plain silver space suit among the bronze and green armored battle suits in the lighted crew space of the dropship.

Wrehn stood and walked to the silver suited passenger. She could tell, right off, it wasn't her client. The suit was smaller than his, and the lightsaber weapon, attached to the utility belt, was different from his.

Switching to Nox's restricted channel, she asked, "Who are you? Don't you have your own dropship to be on?"

Nox's voice came on, "Who are you speaking to?"

Wrehn replied, "Whoever it is that I'm standing in front of. Uh… Dark Lord."

Nox chuckled over the restricted command channel.

Then he said, "So, you weren't lost to me, after all, Lord Vereta. You at least made it to one of the other ships."

Vereta replied, "It would take a great deal more to end me than a mere evacuation drill, Dark Lord."

Nox laughed on hearing that, replying, "Good! I'll need you to last at least a short while more before Malgus' traitorous followers end your existence."

"Dark Lord, I will not shame you!"

Wrehn had already returned to her seat, all the while listening in on the Sith as she shook her head in derision at her circumstances, wondering to herself, " _What is it with my damned luck, always putting me in the worst situations?!_ "

Darth Nox did not acknowledge Vereta's oath. Instead, he reported on the situation.

"Reports are in that the worst of the falling debris is over. My forces are on the move to breach the airlock and any other access points they come across. I have already ordered our dropships to take us to the crater. Once, at the scene, we shall search for exposed walls of the lower levels of the base. We shall breach the exposed wall, and enter the base."

Ten minutes later, Wrehn was stepping down the ramp into a pitch black landscape. It wasn't until she cleared the tail of the dropship and looked up to see the stars that she realized they were at the bottom of a very deep pit. The stars were partially obscured by a cloud of dust which the calm frigid winds lazily blew away from above the crater.

Without the water and carbon dioxide ice to reflect the dim starlight, the landscape within the crater was black with darkness. The pilots of the dropships had switched on their dim anti-collision marker lights to help the low light sensors on everyone's helmets to display the landscape on the screens within their helmets.

Wrehn laughed at what she saw with the aid of the low light enhanced display. They were probably four hundred and fifty meters down at the bottom of the crater, at the crater's sloped wall. The crater seemed to be about two kilometers in diameter. The crater floor sloped gently downward towards the center, where it seemed to bottom out to about a hundred meters deeper. Turning again, to face the crater wall, her video display showed several levels of the exposed broken walls of corridors and exposed broken office spaces, which had been breached at several locations of the underground base.

Clearly, a part of the base had been destroyed and excavated along with the rock and dust from the rest of the crater. Wrehn spoke on her command channel, ensuring that her two hired Mandalorian platoons could hear what she had to say.

"I think if we'd have done it, it would have been worse."

Gault agreed, "Oh, yeah. We would have screwed that up, and the Imps would be blaming us for breaking their base."

Darth Nox's voice came on the general command channel.

"Colonel Fruntz, the entire side of the base has been exposed in the crater wall. There are several breaches to take advantage of. Send in your forces through these breaches and search for Darth Malgus. Report to me when he is found."

"Yes, Dark Lord!"

On the restricted command channel, Nox ordered, "Let us enter the base from one of the breaches on the lowest exposed level."

Wrehn suggested, "Dark Lord, my guess is that, if he's still alive, he's making his way up to escape. Just looking at the exposed and damaged passageways and rooms, gives me the impression that the entire base is shook up pretty badly. Expect power to be off line, ventilation and climate controls taken off line, turbolifts off line, and so on."

Nox issued new orders.

"Colonel Fruntz, keep a large force on the surface, at all of the possible entry ways. Look to capture or kill any survivors, and report any Sith escaping to the surface."

Again, Colonel Fruntz didn't want to embarrass the dark lord by pointing out that it went without saying.

Instead, he professionally replied, "Yes, Dark Lord!"

Colonel Fruntz' troops had already captured a few thousand treasonous scum who had managed to escape the ruined subterranean base.

Meanwhile, Darth Nox had been getting a strong impression from The Force about Darth Malgus.

He turned to one of the silver space suited Sith standing near him, "Lord Ashara, he's waiting for me to find him."

Inside her slightly oversized and uniquely shaped helmet, designed to accommodate her montrals, Ashara closed her eyes and concentrated on The Force.

After a moment, she opened her eyes and with urgency in her tone reported, "My lord, he is coming here!"

As soon as those words left her lips, a section of wall from one of the exposed levels shattered with chunks of masonry flying outward and down onto Nox and his waiting Sith and hired mercenaries. They all scattered and dashed back, away from the wall of the crater to avoid the falling debris.

Wrehn shouted commands at her subordinate officers, even as her subordinate officers began shouting commands at their troops. In very short order, the Mandalorians had reorganized themselves, taking cover behind the rubble which had been strewn throughout the bottom of the crater, the remnants of the bedrock mostly cleared out by the antimatter cratering charge used earlier.

The mercenary warriors let loose a barrage of blaster fire, concentrating their fires at the newly opened hole in the wall one level above the bottom of the crater. Two heavy war droids, their shields up, took up positions at the opening and began to unload their blaster cannons at the Mandalorians shooting from behind large pieces of solid chunks of broken rock, and frozen clumps of dust which had accumulated over a few billion years during the formation of the planet.

The mercenaries were forced to hunker down and take cover from the murderous cannon fire. Nox watched, disgustedly, as Malgus and four other Sith jumped down into the crater, immediately followed by a couple dozen Imperial troops. The Mando fighters corrected this situation when they launched two anti armor guided missiles at the heavy war droids, destroying them both.

Wrehn shouted orders.

"Gault! Get your people to concentrate their fire into that hole. Don't let anymore Imps out of there! Torian! Pin down and destroy the Imps that made it out of that hole! Mako, Skadge! Follow me!"

Wrehn burst out from behind her rock shard, running hard with Mako and Skadge abandoning their own rock shard shelters as they ran after her. As she ran, the three dropships, which lifted up into the frozen air, suddenly blasted the impromptu battleground with their brilliant landing lights. The entire scene was bathed in stark white light.

The shuttles repositioned themselves to change the angles of their lights, eliminating the pitch black shadows cast by the thousands of rock shards of all sizes littering the crater floor. Imperial troops on the ground loyal to Darth Malgus, fired their blaster rifles at the three dropships, but to no effect. The dropships' ray shielding absorbed the energy quite easily.

Wrehn's helmet sensors automatically adjusted themselves to the sudden blast of light, making the display go easy on her eyes. She quickly spotted Malgus' four Sith in battle with four of Nox's Sith and his beast, Khem Val. Looking about, she found Nox and one Sith standing by his side.

They just stood there looking, not at the battle, but at something else. Wrehn turned to look in the direction Nox and Ashara were focused and found that it was a lone Sith who had their attention. Wrehn assumed that it was likely Darth Malgus. She saw that he had his attention riveted on Nox and the Sith at his side, whom Wrehn assumed was Ashara Zavros, because of the shape and size of her helm.

Malgus and his Sith followers wore black Imperial Army Special Forces battle armor, with their white painted pauldrons, while Nox and his Sith wore their plain silver toned, lightly armored space suits. Realizing that her client's enemies held the advantage in armor, Wrehn decided to give Nox's Sith a hand, changing directions as she ran, so that she could slip behind the battling Sith.

Wrehn shouted her orders, on her crew's private channel, "Torian, take over command for a bit!"

"Roger!"

"Skadge, Mako, I'm gonna do the shooting. You guys watch my back!"

Both Skadge and Mako responded in the affirmative, as they maneuvered behind the four traitorous Sith. Wrehn decided to start by eliminating the one enemy battling two of Nox's followers. As she came to a stop, she drew one of her two blasters, and began to aim in.

Before she could get her weapon steadied on target, all four enemy Sith leapt into the air, doing backwards somersaults.

Wrehn shouted out urgently, "SKADGE! OVERHEAD, FRONT! She could see that all four Sith were going to land right in front of her. Mako and Skadge were still turning around to face forward, and Wrehn was still lifting her pistol to adjust her aim at the airborne Sith. Then Wrehn's display screen flashed a red tint, warning of imminent danger.

Suddenly, without further warnings, she found herself flying backwards. She landed and ran backwards a few steps and came to a halt, with her weapon pointed at one of the Sith, which had landed at arm's length from where she had been standing a moment before.

Wrehn didn't know what had happened, but her weapon was still on target, so she began firing, as did Mako and Skadge standing on either side of her. Wrehn never ceased to be wowed by the crazy Force worshipers' ability to do the seemingly impossible, Jedi and Sith, alike. For instance, the enemy Sith were deflecting all of her and her companion's blaster shots with their beamed melee weapons.

Darth Nox's followers renewed their attacks on Malgus' followers, forcing Wrehn and her party to cease firing.

Wrehn finally took note of a message in very small print flashing at the bottom right corner of her display screen.

" _Emergency threat avoidance system activated – high energy melee weapons._ "

Wrehn cleared the flashing message from her display, wearing a huge grin on her face.

As the flashing message cleared, she asked, "You guys get a red flashing screen and a flashing threat avoidance message?"

Mako, very impressed, replied, "You seriously got your money's worth with these armored suits!"

Skadge though, seemed dissatisfied, asking, "How do you shut this thing off? I wanted one of 'em to get up close so that I could pound 'em on the head."

Speaking firmly, Wrehn warned the Houk, "Skadge, don't mess with my suit. If you mess it up, it's coming out of your pay."

Nox's attention was turned to his subordinates' battle, because of the blaster fire coming from that direction. Watching the situation carefully, he shook his head in frustrated disapproval. He angrily chastised his followers.

"Khem, stop playing with your food and kill it, already! Xalek, you are my apprentice. Show them what you've got and stop holding back. Or do you mean to embarrass me?"

Xalek was thoroughly humiliated. His fury rose. He'd been conducting a technically calculated battle. He wanted to learn what his opponent could do. Instead, to Xalek's chagrin, his master mistook his calculated strikes and feints as weakness.

Xalek used The Force to knock his opponent to the ground and pinned him there. He then leapt onto his prone enemy, driving his sabrestaff into his enemy's throat, where the armor was the thinnest. He immediately turned about and dashed forward a few meters. As he advanced on Vereta's foe's back, he used The Force to force the enemy to his knees. He then stabbed Vereta's opponent in the back of his neck, again taking advantage of the armor's weakness.

Meanwhile, Khem Val parried his opponent's lightsaber with his savage oversized vibrosword and, with his huge size advantage, simply reached forward and grabbed his opponent by the arm and flung him several tens of meters to the side. He turned away from the Sith, taking several steps towards Malgus.

Pointing at Malgus with his weapon, he came to a stop, and told Nox, "Master, _that_ is my food!"

The hapless Sith whom Khem had tossed aside, as a toy he'd grown tired of playing with, rose to his feet. Wrehn saw him get up. She pointed both of her custom made blaster pistols at the Sith, and let him have it.

The Sith lord reacted quickly, powering up his shield generators and using his weapon to deflect Wrehn's blaster bolts. She hadn't cranked the power all the way up, so her bolts were not immediately destabilized on contact with his lightsaber beam. Instead, they were deflected away at different angles from the Sith lord's weapon.

Mako and Skadge both ran to get different firing angles on the Sith. Mako stopped and began firing her blaster rifle at the Sith, with Skadge stopping a few meters later before he opened up on the Sith lord.

Wrehn's blaster pistols had gotten hot and automatically shut down, forcing Wrehn out of action. The Sith lord then concentrated his defense against Mako and Skadge, and proceeded to advance on the two as he deflected their bolts.

Wrehn placed her pistols on the frozen shattered bedrock, at the bottom of the crater, to let her guns cool faster. After making adjustments to her weapons, changing out the battery packs, and after letting them cool rapidly on the cryogenically cool rock surface, she picked up her blasters and aimed in on the Sith.

Wrehn let him have it again.

The Sith lord had ignited a second lightsaber, using it to block Wrehn's blaster bolts. The highly overpowered energy bolts were extremely unstable. The instant the first bolt made contact with his weapon's cutting beam it destabilized and instantly diffused its energy in an explosive burst.

The Sith was knocked over by the force of the rapidly expanding energy, which quickly depleted much of the energy from his shield generators. Skadge and Mako fired him up where he lay struggling to get back up onto his feet, depleting the remaining energy of his shield generator batteries. Soon, some of their blaster bolts impacted his Imperial cortosis reinforced plate armored suit. He had finally risen to his feet, and made a mad dash for Mako and Skadge.

Wrehn, already aiming, fired off a single bolt, striking him on the white painted pauldron. The blast energy blew his armored arm clean off, along with his white painted pauldron. The quickly spreading blast wave sheared his helmet off, taking his head with it. The Sith's body tumbled in the air, following behind his helmeted head onto the edge of the light bathed battleground, where his body crashed in a heap as his helmeted head bounced and rolled out of the lighted area and into the darkness.

Wrehn scanned the scene for more enemies, but found the battleground had become silent, as she watched the last enemy Sith fall dead at the hands of Nox's followers. She called for a status report on her team's private command channel.

"Torian! Report current status!"

"Rebelling Imperial forces arrived in reinforced platoon strength. Part of their platoon deployed in the field, with the rest getting trapped inside the base. We destroyed them in the field, and then pressed the attack through the breach in the wall the enemy made when they arrived on the scene.

"Imperial forces loyal to our client are infiltrating the base from the upper levels of the exposed base walls. I expect enemy forces to evacuate via the lower levels. We'll probably get more company, soon.

"Local hostile Imperial forces have been neutralized. We sustained four killed, and four wounded. We had an advantage in numbers with an almost two to one margin in our favor. Mandalorians are consolidating their positions. Awaiting further orders."

Wrehn replied, "Good work. Standby for new orders."

Nox declared, "The rest of the fight is mine and my followers.'"

Recalling her earlier thoughts on how it was that Nox had known it was her plan, Wrehn became suspicious that her team's private encrypted channel might have been compromised when Darth Nox spoke right on cue on his restricted command channel.

Nox gave additional orders, telling Wrehn, "Keep your mercenaries out of this, Yehw'reh'nomai."

She kept her suspicions to herself, as she replied, "You got it, Dark Lord."


	11. Victory and Defeat

Victory and Defeat

 **Special Notes:** The dialogue in bold text is an exact word for word copy from the dialogue the player character, Darth Nox (in my case as the player), and Darth Malgus have in the cut scene, depending on the dialogue choices you make. This dialog takes place just before the big boss fight. In the game, "Star Wars: The Old Republic," the Darth Nox character uses a tone that shows sympathy with Malgus' ideals even as Nox disagrees with Malgus' methods for achieving those aims. I changed the tone of voice Darth Nox delivers his lines to reflect his own selfish motivations. Malgus is the boss you have to beat in the game.

* * *

Wrehn watched as Darth Nox and Lord Ashara approached their enemy. Khem Val and the other Sith following Nox also converged on Darth Malgus' left. She concluded that Nox had the decided advantage, but Wrehn didn't understand The Force. She didn't understand that Nox and his whole party were the underdogs, here.

Wrehn spoke to her crew on her private channel.

"We're done, here. Our client can handle the rest. Have you thought of a way to hijack those dropships? If our client loses, we'll need to escape and those ships are our only way out."

She kicked herself, mentally, after her question was out. Wrehn was still unsure if their private encrypted channel had been compromised. She didn't want to communicate her concerns over the comm system for fear of tipping off the Imperial Army that they'd been discovered eaves dropping on her and her team. Wrehn realized, however, that her reticence was a mistake, and wished she'd given some clue to her crew that the Imperial Army was probably listening in, as she listened to Torian's reply.

"We've already got our people in place. They had ' _equipment malfunctions_ ' which forced them to be ' _evacuated_ ' onto two of the dropships along with the seriously wounded. If any of the leadership gives the signal, they'll hijack the ships and bring them down for us to board." With concern tinting his tone, he added, "I think our hired guns will turn on us and hand us over to our client. They indicated concerns that we won't be able to pay them the balance of what we owe. We have to watch for signs that they are negotiating with our client to work out a deal with him for a reward – since, it seems, you stepped in it with him."

Gault interjected, "In fact, I know they'll turn on us. As soon as Torian was done briefing them on our contingency plan for a getaway, they had a private off channel chat with each other. I couldn't hear their comm, but the way they stood around pointing at each other and waving their arms around got me thinking they were arguing about something. Only thing I can think they'd argue over is money. I think they're ready to turn on us. It's the only time they'd ever spoken off channel to each other where we couldn't hear them."

Mako chimed in, "If our client loses, they might try handing us off to his enemy to try to get him to let them go."

With the nexu out of the bag – if the Imperials were listening in, Wrehn concluded there was nothing else that could be done about it.

She simply replied, "Alright. Good report, Torian, Gault. You make a good point, too, Mako."

After a moment to think, she gave new orders on her command channel.

"Torian, Gault, good work with your platoons. This job's almost over. Hand over control of your platoons to Captain Tartan and Lieutenant Dremon and then return to me. Captain Tartan, Lieutenant Dremon, you both report directly to me now. Report your status."

Captain Tartan gave his report.

"My troops have created a perimeter defense against possible incoming attacks from ground forces attacking from the open. Lieutenant Dremon's platoon is securing the breached wall, from the inside, to keep enemy reinforcements from reaching us from within the base. We are ready for new orders."

Wrehn said, "Remain vigilant and standby for orders as I get them from our client."

What she really wanted was to separate Torian and Gault from their hired guns, and consolidate her own position by bringing her crew together.

Wrehn added a warning to her hired mercenaries.

"There's a fight coming between the Sith. Keep out of this fight and stay out of their way. The Sith want to settle it amongst themselves."

Captain Tartan immediately shouted his own orders.

"First Platoon, expand the line!"

He wanted to get his troops out of the way of the coming fight.

Wrehn watched as Tartan's mercenary warriors rose up from crouching behind the rubble and then proceed to move further away from the crater wall and deeper into the crater, expanding their curved perimeter line, until they exited the illuminated battleground.

She thought to herself, as she watched the mercenaries move, " _That opens up the distance between my crew and theirs. More space for my crew to run around in if Tartan and his people start any trouble._ "

Mako urgently gave a series of hand signals to Wrehn, which Wrehn quickly acted on. Dialing up a frequency on her armored suit's built-in communications gear, she caught a fragment of Nox's remarks on an old unencrypted Imperial Army guard channel which had been abandoned since the Imperials' civil war began.

"... betrayed the Emperor and the Sith Empire! Why should I hear your treasonous words?!"

Getting right to the point, Darth Malgus replied, **"** **The Empire is withering away. Soon it will be obliterated by decadence and antiquated ideals. Yet still you struggle to keep it from healing.**

" **Don't you see? Our survival demands a new Empire, tempered by alien alliances and strengthened by tolerance."**

Darth Nox grudgingly admitted the truth in Malgus' words, disgustedly replying, " **I've seen the Empire's weakness.** " Angrily, he added, " **We must change to survive, but you're going about it the wrong way!"**

Malgus, expecting that Nox would reject his cause, pointed out, **"** **You know the Dark Council would never willingly relinquish their power."**

Malgus then laid it out for Nox to see, telling him, "Our civil war shall be the pyre upon which the Sith Empire will die and a new empire be born. Nearly half of the Imperial armies and navies support my cause, and I have the armies and navies of several alien territories that have allied with me in support of my principles. They seek an end to the Empire's old ways of exclusion from power and wealth. I will give them inclusion and let them earn the power and wealth their merits and capabilities will allow them to achieve. It will be a true meritocracy for Sith and non-Sith, human and non-human alike."

Malgus drew and activated his lightsaber. Nox and his followers all reactivated their weapons in response.

Nox, a newly minted dark councilor, scoffed his enemy, saying, "You're right about one thing, Malgus. I would never cede my power – power that I had worked so hard to obtain – to a usurper like you!" Then he excoriated Malgus, telling him, "You could have been a dark councilor! You certainly merited the post. You could have used your power and influence to steer the Empire towards your ideals and principles. You had the respect of the Dark Council. They would have listened, and probably agreed with some of your ideals. Instead, you squandered your power and influence, and wasted the Empire's resources and might in a fruitless war that will set back these ideals you profess to embrace!

"You could have overcome Marr's influence over the other dark councilors and steered them down this path. Instead, all that you've managed to accomplish is to almost certainly give the victory to the Galactic Republic! Your betrayal has weakened the Empire to the point of vulnerability to our foes. You are nothing more than a mere traitor!"

Malgus declared, "The time for talk is past!" Then he proclaimed with great zeal, **"** **Die, or defeat me! Either way, the Empire is reborn!"**

He leapt into the attack against Nox's followers, immediately striking down one of the Sith lords with his weapon and quickly following that up with a massive force push that sent Lord Xalek flying out of the light washed battleground and into the darkness.

* * *

Captain Tartan toured the expanded perimeter. He wanted to ensure his fighters had taken up good defensible positions. He knew the chances of an enemy attack, originating from outside the ruined subterranean base, was quite nil. However, not being prepared, even for such a slim possibility, was still a very reckless act of irresponsibility. So, being the responsible commander that he was, he prepared for an attack he was all but certain would not come.

As he inspected his troops' new fighting positions, he also checked each mercenary fighter, inspecting the condition of their armor and weapons, ensuring his troops were not starting to freeze and that their wounds and injuries were all reported for treatment later. His seriously wounded had already been evacuated onto the dropships and were receiving emergency care. He made sure his injured troops, still in the field, had enough kolto to deaden their pain until they could get proper treatment.

Their service droids followed along as he went, allowing his troops a chance to swap out expended shield generator batteries, depleted weapons batteries, and to swap out the battery packs which powered the heaters, respirator air scrubbers, communications gear and sensors in their powered armored suits. Some of the troops also replaced grenades which they'd expended during their battle with the rebelling Imperial troops.

His men and women fighters ' _ooo-d_ ' and ' _ahh-ed_ ' at something which held their attention instead of the perimeter defense. He turned towards the lit battleground, nearly two hundred meters from his new perimeter in the darkness, and watched as the hulking beast, who served their Sith client, was sent flying several tens of meters out of the light washed battleground and into the darkness.

Returning his attention to his troops, he addressed the warriors, asking, "Are you ready for greater glory?! Are you ready for a _real_ fight?!"

One of his troops asked, "Are you really going to challenge the Great Hunt Champion? We're not done with this mission, yet."

Tartan sensed the doubt in her tone and replied, "She is just a mercenary with really good gear and a very fancy title. Don't let that make you forget your own abilities. And besides, you heard it yourself, our mission is over. We're just waiting for these Sith to kill each other off."

Another chorus of ' _oh's_ ' from his troops made Tartan turn quickly to take another look at the Siths' battle. He'd heard stories of it before, but until he'd just seen it for himself, he never would have believed that they could make big rocks fly just by pointing their hands at them and flicking their wrists in the direction they wanted the rock to fly. Another of his fighters asked a question, which returned his attention to the inspection of his troops.

"How are you planning on collecting the rest of the money she owes us? If you attack her before our mission is over, you think she'll still pay?"

Yet another of his fighters commented.

"Miir makes a good point, Captain. How you planning on collecting if you piss her off?"

Tartan had already lost the support of Lieutenant Dremon. She had adamantly refused to join him on his adventure, and the doubts expressed by some of his own troops was an indication that he might lose control of his own platoon, as well, if he forced them down this path.

He told his men, "Alright, I'll let you decide. If you wanna get into a real good fight then come with me. If you wanna play it safe and sit it out, then stay in your positions on the perimeter. But if I win, you're only getting half pay. If I die, you pick a new platoon leader to lead the platoon, but Lieutenant Dremon will take command of the company. She'll represent the company to collect the balance of what The Great Champion owes."

His troops became chatty on hearing his proposal and shouted their well wishes and their jeers.

"Fight well Captain!"

"Here! Here!"

"I'll write songs and epic poems of your glorious death, Captain!"

Captain Tartan replied, "Aye, but let another do the singing. Your singing can haunt the dead, and if I die, I don't want to be haunted!"

Raucous laughter followed his retort as another of his troops shouted, "I nominate Bem'na for next platoon leader!"

Bem'na shouted, "I'm honored for the vote of confidence, but shouldn't you wait until the Captain's dead, first?"

More raucous laughter ensued.

Captain Tartan shouted, good-naturedly, "Enough with the chirping! Who's with me?!"

He was surprised to get as many troops to follow him as he did, ten in all.

* * *

Malgus spun about, swinging his weapon until it crashed into Khem Val's savage vibrosword, stopping the huge monster's attack. Malgus quickly followed that up with a vicious front kick, powered with The Force. Despite the size difference, Khem Val was sent tumbling backwards through the frozen air.

Before the huge Dashade crashed into the ground several tens of meters away, Malgus sent one of the shattered rocks, lying on the crater floor, hurtling at Khem Val. Khem quickly rose to his feet and, seeing the huge rock hurtling towards him, used the broad side of his vibrosword to block the rock. It saved his space suit from damage, but the rock's momentum knocked him back down again.

Vereta and another of Nox's Sith followers attacked Malgus together. Malgus reached with both hands towards them and unleashed a torrent of Force Lighting from each hand. Vereta quickly reacted, capturing the lighting directed at her with her lightsaber, and quickly redirected it to the shattered stone surface on which she stood.

Her comrade was not so quick. His space suit's systems were fried, and his suit ceased to function. He quickly began to lose heat and, quite rapidly, the air in his suit began to become too stale to breathe. He turned to flee Malgus, but the False Emperor showed him no quarter. He used The Force to send a rock shard flying at the fleeing Sith's helmet.

Again, the Sith was not quite fast enough when he dodged. The shard's sharpened edge glanced off the side of his helm, slicing a narrow hole which let Ilum's cryogenically cold atmosphere enter his suit. The Sith died horribly, unable to scream out his anguish, as super cold air rushed into his mouth and down into his lungs, causing the blood in his capillaries to freeze solid. He fell to the rock surface writhing and kicking in agony.

As he attempted to breathe out the still one hundred seventy degree below zero air out of his lungs, the frozen capillaries and air sacs shattered. His lungs felt as though they were on fire, and every breath he took was sheer torment. Compounded to the torture in his chest, was the fact that his head was also rapidly, and painfully, freezing. He did not feel this agony for long, as his head and brain froze very quickly. It felt like an eternity to him, but his ordeal was over in just under a minute when he lost consciousness, and then died very shortly thereafter.

While her ally died, Vereta fired off a blast of Force Lighting at Malgus, which he deflected with his weapon. She immediately followed up her lightning attack with a powerful Force Push attack that sent Malgus flying. Vereta quickly turned about and ran to stand at Darth Nox's side, opposite of Ashara.

Malgus recovered, regaining his feet. Unlike Nox's party who were only equipped with fragile space suits susceptible to harsh treatment, Malgus wore Imperial Army Heavy Operations armor, specially modified for Ilum's frigid climate.

Not only was his armor able to withstand the punishment of slamming onto the rocky surface, but his armor was treated with a laminated layer of cortosis. It was able to withstand several blaster bolt hits in the same area, and was resistant to lightsaber beam cuts.

Malgus was surprised then to see one of Nox's followers return to the battle. Xalek returned to the light washed battleground, and reignited both ends of his sabrestaff. He dashed forward in the attack against Malgus, reaching his offhand towards his enemy and zapping Malgus with Force Lighting.

Malgus was not quick enough to deflect it with his own weapon, and stood trembling from the shock. Xalek thrust his sabrestaff into Malgus' armored breastplate, but Malgus' shield generator, combined with his cortosis laminated armor allowed him to withstand the attack.

Malgus recovered from the Force Lightning attack and brought his lightsaber strike, augmented with the power of The Force, to bear against Xalek. Darth Nox's apprentice, used his sabrestaff to parry the powerful strike, then he spun to give momentum to a Force powered back kick, sending Malgus flying.

Lord Xalek canceled his follow up attack when he caught a glimpse of the gargantuan form of Khem Val flying through the air at Malgus. Khem's huge vibrosword slammed into the rock surface at the bottom of the crater, where Malgus had just recovered, scrambling to his feet and dodging the monster's leaping attack at the last instant.

Springing from harm's way, Malgus used The Force to lift several rock shards from the crater floor and sent them hurtling at Khem Val. Even as Khem Val nimbly dodged the flying debris, Malgus immediately followed up his flying rock attack with a Force Push attack, sending Khem Val tumbling in the air and out of the light washed battleground and into the darkness for a second time.

As Xalek prepared to strike at Malgus, Nox spoke his command.

"Lord Xalek, stop."

Clearly frustrated, Xalek angrily shook his sabrestaff as he deactivated it. Angrily stomping his foot on the ground, he turned towards his lord and made his way to his master's side.

Even as he battled to keep his voice calm, Xalek growled out through clenched teeth, "As you wish…., my master!"

Nox walked towards Malgus, accompanied by Ashara and Vereta, and ordered Xalek, "Find Khem Val and get him aboard one of the dropships."

Xalek protested, "Master, if the Dashade is too weak to..."

Nox cut him off, "Xalek, if I hadn't stopped you, you would have died, too. You aren't ready for a challenge such as Malgus. Now, go find Khem Val as I have instructed."

Xalek knelt before Nox, declaring with clear fury in his tone, "As my master commands!"

Xalek turned towards the darkness, in the direction Khem Val was sent flying, to complete his task. Nox returned his attention to Malgus, walking towards his enemy.

"I thank you for paying me the courtesy of patiently waiting for me to finish my business with my apprentice, but if I were in your boots, I would have struck with everything to fell my distracted foe."

Malgus replied, "You are the product of your dead master, Darth Zash. Craftiness, manipulation, and deceit were her hallmarks, and I see you honor her memory with your own boasts of underhandedness."

Nox asked with surprise in his tone, "You don't approve? After all, isn't that how you betrayed your Emperor and our Empire?"

Ignoring Nox's taunt, Malgus replied, "I have watched your progress over time. I have seen you grow in power and stature. I've heard of your powerful mastery of The Force, and of your prowess in your battles against Darth Thanaton's followers, and finally against Thanaton himself, just over a month ago. Now I want to see this power with my own eyes. Let me test your strength, Nox!"

With that, Malgus caused several rock shards to lift into the frigid air of Ilum, and sent them flying at Nox. Malgus watched as the rocks all passed through Nox, just as he felt a violent shove against his back, which sent him stumbling forward.

Somehow – Malgus did not know how – Darth Nox had fooled him into believing the dark lord was still in front of him, but all this time Nox had been sneaking behind him for the sabrestaff attack at his back. Again, Malgus' personal shield generator and his cortosis reinforced Imperial Army Heavy Operations battle armor saved him from a lightsaber strike.

Malgus immediately spun about to face his enemy, but Nox had immediately, followed up his sabrestaff strike with a very powerful Force Lighting attack that drained the remaining energy of his enemy's personal shield generator. Malgus was also electrocuted in the attack and had trouble moving his arm to position his weapon defensively.

Ashara Zavros, Lord of The Sith, used The Force to cause several rock shards to go flying into Malgus' back. Malgus was knocked forward onto his helmet-visored face onto the cold, hard, shattered stone floor of the crater.

Nox immediately leapt into the attack, landing next to Magus and drove his sabrestaff into Malgus' back again, this time burning a deep gouge into his armor. Nox leapt back before Malgus could grab his space booted foot with his free armored gloved hand.

Malgus pushed himself up, springing back to his feet.

Facing Nox, Malgus spoke condescendingly, "You're pin prick attacks do nothing to..."

Malgus was surprised by another attack, as he was violently shoved forward again. This time Ashara had struck at his back with her own lightsaber. Malgus realized that Nox and his follower were working to burn through his armor, attacking the same spot on his back.

He immediately turned about to face his attacker and Force Pushed Ashara, sending her flying across the brightly lit battleground and into the crater wall beneath the breach in the exposed section of wall, which he and his dead followers had emerged from earlier. Malgus chose to ignore the gaggle of Mandalorian mercenaries watching the battle from within the breach in the wall above the crater floor.

Ashara, however, did not crash into the wall. She landed against the crater's rock wall on her feet, and immediately sprang back at Malgus with her two lightsabers blazing, the blue one on defense and the red one pointed in the attack. Malgus dodged to his left and escaped both Ashara's frontal attack and Nox's sneak attack at his back.

Nox halted in his tracks and then used The Force to capture Ashara in mid flight, and set her on the rock surface in front of him. Ashara immediately dashed to the side to flank her enemy again. Malgus came to a stop after dodging.

He turned to face Nox and spat out, "Cowardly!"

Nox laughed at Malgus, retorting, "It's more like we're quite effective!" Tauntingly, he added, "If you don't want to die by my hand then remove your helm, freeze to death, and rob me of my victory! I promise that I won't take credit if you die by your own hand!" He laughed mockingly at Malgus.

* * *

Wrehn asked, "Any luck yet, Mako?"

Wrehn couldn't see Mako shaking her head slowly inside of her helmet, indicating a negative response, but then she answered verbally.

"I got their frequency, but they're using a very tough encryption algorithm. There's definitely a lot of chatter, but all I'm getting is a bunch of high pitched beeps and clicks."

Gault cut in, "They're up to something. Some of them are abandoning their positions on the perimeter."

Wrehn changed channels and called out, "Captain Tartan. Why are some of your troops moving? They need to keep watch at the perimeter."

Captain Tartan replied, "How did you ever become the Great Hunt Champion? Did you cheat, somehow? You've barely fired your weapon at any of the enemies, here. We did all of your fighting for you."

Wrehn cursed under her breath, and then vehemently ordered, "I don't have time for a mutiny now, Captain! Get your people back in position and stand by for my orders!"

Captain Tartan replied, "I'm going to show my men some _real_ fighting!"

Torian shouted furiously, "Captain Tartan, honor the contract!"

Tartan replied, "We _are_ honoring the contract. Lieutenant Dremon is defending the breach, to prevent the Imps from reinforcing your client's enemy, and the bulk of my platoon is maintaining the exterior perimeter against a possible but very unlikely counter attack from an enemy outside the base. Only a small part of my platoon is joining me to challenge the Great Hunt Champion."

Skadge declared excitedly, "I wanna play! Come on! Let's have a little fun!"

Torian, Gault, Mako, and Wrehn all shouted, "Shut it, Skadge!"

Gault tried to reason with the hired gun.

"Say, Captain, didn't we have a deal? We're paying you top credits for this job. Don't tell me you're trying to renegotiate the terms, now that..."

Mako cut in, speaking as though trying to explain a simple concept to a dimwitted Gamorrean palace guard on Hutta, "Captain Tartan, Wrehn is the Great Hunt Champion – _for a reason!_ "

Captain Tartan answered, sounding mystified as to why Mako couldn't understand.

"But this is why we are challenging her. We want to see it for ourselves."

Clearly frustrated, Mako threw her hands in the air, "Of course! I should have known! It's one of those " _Mandalorian_ " things!"

Turning on Torian, Mako chided him.

"Why do you Mandalorians always gotta prove stuff with a fight to the death?! You people don't make any sense!" Pointing a thumb over her shoulder at her boss, she added, "Why can't you be more level headed and practical, like Wrehn?"

Mako gave a little hop and chirped out a surprised, "Oh!" as she became startled by the full auto report of Wrehn's twin blasters.

Wrehn's mouth also blasted her fury at her subcontractor.

"You miserable mynock's turd, I'll vaporize your ungrateful carcass!"

Everyone dove for cover, everyone except for Wrehn who was shooting wildly at Tartan as he scrambled for cover behind a rock shard, and Skadge who was whooping and hollering, as he detached his heavy blaster rifle from its carrying mount on the back of his armor.

Excitedly, he shouted over Wrehn's foul curses, "Yeah! That's what I'm talkin' about, Wrehn! Let's get 'em!"

* * *

Meanwhile, taking advantage of Malgus' attention on Nox, Vereta used the time to concentrate as she built up power in The Force. When she was ready, she released a powerful bolt of Force Lighting at her enemy. However, Malgus, without even looking her way, brought up his lightsaber and deflected the lighting attack right back at her. She barely blocked her own Force Lightning attack with her lightsaber, narrowly escaping a humiliating death with her own attack.

Meanwhile, disgust tinged Malgus' tone as he spoke scathingly at Nox, telling him, "The Empire cannot stand with one such as you leading it! It is people like you, with your back dealing, and back stabbing that has weakened the Empire, draining it of its capable leadership with each assassination! It is why the Galactic Republic will gain such an enormous advantage over us!"

Nox laughed out loud, as Ashara pointed out the obvious.

"It is your treason that has divided the Empire against itself and that has given our enemies in the Republic the advantage! For all of your noble talk of giving all Imperials a chance to rise according to their own merits, you have robbed them of the very chance with this betrayal! The Dark Council will never consider such a possibility again, because it will be associated with your treason!"

Nox spoke speculatively, "Actually, if _I_ were to propose such a thing, and successfully implement it, I could gain a great following of aliens who will owe their new found elevated status to _me_ … That could prove to be a powerful tool to further my own goals." Returning his attention to Malgus, he added facetiously, "Thanks for the idea, Malgus. I think it has serious potential for my own ambitions."

Indignant, Malgus shot back, "Such open and shameless hypocrisy! You battle me to preserve the throne for the ineffective Emperor Vitiate. Yet, you seek the throne for _yourself?!_ "

Nox answered as though it was obvious, "Well, of course. I'm just not ready, yet. But I'm not going to let you have the throne, either."

The quality of the lighting changed as one of the dropships moved from its position illuminating the battleground. This had happened earlier, as the Mandalorians evacuated their wounded onto the two dropships which had brought them into battle earlier. Nox surmised this probably meant that Xalek had found Khem Val and was loading him onto one of the craft.

With the light source removed, the lighting on the ground changed, creating shadows. Nox hoped the change in the lighting caused enough of a distraction for him to take advantage. He concentrated as he built up power in The Force, and when he thought Malgus might attack, Nox unleashed a terrible blinding bolt of Force lightning at his enemy, which Malgus deflected into the rocky ground with his weapon.

Ashara dashed forward in the attack and struck Malgus in the back with her red beamed saber, burning deeper into his armor. Meanwhile, Nox used Force Persuasion again to trick Malgus into believing that he was standing in place, preparing for another lightning attack, but Nox was actually creeping around to get behind Malgus for another attack with his sabrestaff.

Malgus pivoted adroitly, turning to strike Ashara with his lightsaber, Ashara crossed her two weapons, blocking Malgus' attack and used The Force to trap his weapon in the crux of her crossed saber beams. Malgus couldn't pull his weapon free. He then gave Ashara a vicious Force powered front kick, which sent her flying towards the crater wall again. Ashara was forced to release his weapon so that she could use The Force to guard against his powerful kick.

Again, Ashara maneuvered herself so that she could bounce off the wall with her feet. Instead of launching herself off of the wall in an attack against the usurper, as she had done before, she simply landed on the ground near the crater wall. Standing at the ready, her red and blue beamed weapons both seemed to hum their menacing threats of death at the False Emperor.

Despite successfully guarding against his powerful kick, she still suffered from the blow. She stood winded, trying to catch her breath and coming to realize she could not match his power.

She thought to herself, " _He is strong!_ "

Ashara was coming to understand that Malgus' power might actually be greater than what he had demonstrated. She started to see that Malgus was very likely holding back. Lord Ashara realized that Darth Nox was in danger, because he had not yet realized this for himself.

Ashara asked herself, " _Is he toying with us?_ "

Meanwhile, Malgus had spun again to face Nox. Thrusting both hands forward as though he were shoving a heavy object, he blasted Nox with a powerful Force Push attack. Nox's Force Persuasion attempt failed completely. Malgus would not be tricked a second time.

Nox's phantom image vanished while the real Nox appeared, tumbling end over end, as he flew into the darkness out of the lighted battleground. He used The Force to recover, landing on his feet. His face, chest, belly, the front of his thighs all stung mightily, as though he'd done a belly flop into a pool of freezing water from a great height. Ignoring the stinging pain, he ran back to the lighted battleground and noticed that Malgus was not there.

 _Instinct!_

Nox deactivated his weapon and threw himself to the left, rolling to avoid a rock shard hurled at him from the darkness behind him. The rock fragment crashed into the lighted ground ahead of him, as he sprang back to his feet, reigniting his sabrestaff and pivoting to his right to face his enemy.

In the darkness, all that the dark lord could see was Malgus' deep red lightsaber beam, angled down alongside his leg, illuminating a small patch of ground and dimly bathing Malgus' black Imperial Army armored suit in its deep red glow.

Malgus took a running leap into the air, his red glowing weapon rose above his head. Nox quickly reacted, dashing to his left, towards the lighted battleground. Malgus landed where Nox had stood a moment before and immediately turned in the direction Nox had dodged and charged at the newly ascended dark councilor.

Nox stood at the ready with his sabrestaff, then reaching his offhand towards Malgus, fired off a blast of Force Lightning. Malgus was forced to lower his weapon to intercept the lightning attack with his lightsaber as he closed in on Nox, thus his attack on Nox was spoiled.

Nox took advantage of this, attacking as though he would thrust his weapon at his enemy's gut. Malgus halted to avoid Nox's attack to his midsection and moved his weapon to parry Nox's thrusting attack, but Nox quickly flipped the rear beam of his doubled beamed sabrestaff up and over towards the front, thus raising his weapon above Malgus' parry, and instead thrust his weapon at Malgus' throat.

Malgus dodged the attack, spinning on one foot while raising his other to land a side kick into Nox's hip, sending him stumbling and rolling to the side. Nox quickly recovered, and was back on his feet, his sabrestaff at the ready.

* * *

Torian, on a knee, stuck his head out from behind a rock shard and located some of the Mandalorians who had decided it was a great idea to challenge Wrehn and her crew to a battle of skill and cunning. He took aim with his blaster rifle and used its laser range finder to determine their distance.

Then he loaded a self propelled grenade at the end of his blaster rifle and switched his weapon's fire setting to 'Launch Grenade.' Faint green holographic reticles were projected above his weapon, with twin vertical lines on each reticle, one near the muzzle, and one above the pistol grip at the trigger housing group. He punched in the range, the weapon's laser range finder had indicated, adding four extra meters.

Two thin red horizontal lines appeared in the reticles, one each at the front and back holographic projections. He lined up the two red horizontal lines with each other and with the target area while also aligning the four vertical green lines and setting the target area between the lines before finally squeezing the trigger. A very low powered blaster bolt discharged from his rifle, igniting the propellant in the self propelled grenade.

The grenade shot forward with a sharp bang, arcing up and then down as it traversed the one hundred and fifty three meters his range finder told him was the distance to his target. Then, traveling four additional meters past the rock cover, behind which the three mercenaries cowered, the grenade detonated just one meter above the shattered rock surface.

* * *

Darth Nox turned to look behind himself upon hearing a grenade blast through his helmet. He was greeted by the sight of variously colored blaster bolts flying back and forth in the pitch black area outside of the lighted battleground. A few of the bolts flew well over his head and struck the crater wall behind him. The errant blaster bolts expended their energies as their uniformly aligned energy waves were suddenly disorganized and radiated in all directions with the force of a powerful blast. Pieces of the crater rock wall shattered and were sent scattering onto the crater floor in the lighted area of the battleground.

On his restricted command channel he asked his contractor, "Have Darth Malgus' forces pinned us against the crater wall, Yehw'reh'nomai?"

Panting for breath and growling out some of her words, Wrehn nearly shouted her reply.

"Nah! Just some of my – hired guns messing around. They – BLASTED K'LOR'SLUG! YOU'LL PAY FOR THAT! Uh, sorry about that. I – I was saying they got bored of – just sitting around. Sorry about – the distraction. Don't worry about it. I'll get this – this mess sorted out."

Nox, shaking his head in disbelief at what he'd heard and with great frustration, ordered, "Get this straightened out quickly! You're embarrassing me in front of my enemy!"

Wrehn, herself feeling embarrassed in front of her client, growled out angrily, "You got it, Dark Lord!"

Nox turned about and found that Malgus had not moved.

Thinking that his enemy was foolish for not taking advantage of a distracted foe, Nox told him, "You certainly are quite the gentleman, Malgus."

He'd meant that as an insult, but there was no irony in his tone, so Malgus took it as a complement. He gave Nox a slight bow at the waist, acknowledging what he thought to be praise.

Malgus returned the gesture, complementing Nox's battle prowess.

"From our small exchange with our lightsabers, I can gauge your proficiency in the martial arts. You're skill with that weapon is not just technical, but is telling of your combat experience. I can see there is truth to the many claims of your personal involvement on the battlefield from the way you handled yourself, here. Now, let me test your power in The Force."

Nox wondered what dark secrets he might glean from his battles with his enemy as Malgus let his hatred and his malice radiate from him. Nox felt the power of the Dark Side flow from Malgus in crushing waves. He felt himself become overcome with fear and felt himself losing command of his thoughts. The aura radiating from his enemy was terrible!

Nox felt the pressure of Malgus' power push against his being and felt it sapping his strength. He felt as though he would be crushed by it as he sank to his hands and knees and found himself barely able to take in a breath as the crushing aura seemed to squeeze his entire being.

Through his rapidly growing fear, even as he fought desperately to keep his sanity, Nox thought to himself, " _I want that power!_ "

* * *

Zigzagging towards a covered and concealed mercenary, assisted by his powered armored suit, Skadge rapidly closed the distance to the lone Mandalorian fighter. He jumped up and over the rock and came crashing down, feet first, onto the crouching Mandalorian fighter.

Skadge rolled forward and ended up on his feet again. He pivoted on his right foot, snap turning his bulky frame, made even bigger by his armored suit, and pointed his blaster rifle at the mercenary lying spread eagle on the rocky crater floor. Skadge could see on the display screen in his helm, the low light image of the mercenary laying, unmoving, on his back.

Skadge walked to the motionless fighter and gave a light kick on the mercenary's helmet. There was no reaction.

The Houk brute declared, "Ha! Ha! Too easy!"

He turned to run off to where he'd last seen another fighter taking cover behind another rock shard.

Wrehn had seen what the Houk did and shouted angrily, "Skadge, I swear I'm gonna dock your pay for the damages to my suit!"

Skadge replied, "This suit is a lot of fun! I'm gonna see what else it can do!"

Gault and Torian had both rushed to the large rock fragment, behind which the three Mandalorians had been taking cover. They found that the three warriors, unsteady on their feet, were staggering back to the safety of the perimeter, which was still manned by their mercenary comrades who had not taken part in the challenge. The three had abandoned their weapons, leaving them behind.

Gault observed, "Damn! Still alive after taking a hit from a grenade? Those are some pretty damned good armored suits they've got on!"

Torian had gathered up the abandoned blaster rifles and leaned them against the rock. He stepped back a few paces and then, firing his own rifle at the weapons, destroyed them.

Looking at the stumbling and staggering trio making their sluggish escape, Gault asked, "Do we finish them off?"

Torian replied, "No. Under the rules of a challenge of skill, if you can't fight, then you leave the battle. They have left the battle, and by destroying their weapons I have made sure they cannot return to the fight."

Wrehn heard what Torian had said and angrily shouted her questions at him.

"You mean I _can't_ kill 'em?! I _want_ to kill 'em! Why can't I kill 'em?!"

Torian replied, shocked at Wrehn's attitude, "If you killed them as they retired from battle, it would be seen as unsportsmanlike. It would sully your reputation!"

Wrehn furiously shouted, "I just want them dead! To hell with my reputation!"

From behind a large rock fragment, she scanned ahead but found none of the renegade Mandalorians she'd shot at a moment before.

She cursed, "Damn it, Tartan! Where did you hide your miserable mynock's hide?!"

Gault said dryly, "Try asking him that on the command channel, Wrehn. I don't think he heard you on our private channel."

Wrehn shot back, hotly, "That was a rhetorical question, smart ass! I know he wouldn't tell me, even if I did ask him on the command channel!"

Then she took off running to where she'd last seen the mutinous mercenary captain. Mako darted after Wrehn, taking cover as cover became available. As Wrehn ran past a pile of rock ruble, a mercenary popped up, taking aim at her back, but he dove for cover as two blaster bolts streaked past him, with a third one exploding on the right side of his armor. It was Mako who'd gotten the Mando fighter.

She ran up to the felled mercenary to be sure of her kill. When she found him, he was rolling onto his back. She watched as he then began to push his weapon away from where he lay, wounded.

Mako, pointing her blaster rifle at him, snarled on the command channel, "Do I have to finish you off, or are you gonna quit?"

The poor _woman_ gasped in obvious agony, "I, I quit."

Mako, slightly surprised it was a female fighter, pivoted on her heels without saying another word, and continued chasing after Wrehn, covering her boss' rear.

* * *

Ashara found Vereta and told her, "You and I must work as one to complement the dark lord's attacks against the traitor."

Concern tingeing her tone, Vereta asked, "Did you see what he did to my Force Lighting attack?" Vereta didn't wait for Ashara's reply, instead answering her own question. "He deflected it back at me!" She added with urgency, "He nearly killed me with my own attack!"

It wasn't fear of death that caused Vereta to utter those words, but her realization of the difference in power and control of The Force Malgus exercised with the way he'd deflected her attack. She realized she was a mere acolyte, when compared to Malgus, when it came to control of The Force.

Speaking firmly, Ashara replied, "I watched him block your attack without looking to see from where the attack had come. He is very strong in The Force." Speaking with confident assurance, however, she told Vereta, "And this is how we will distract and harass him, so that the dark lord may find an opening to strike him down."

"Vereta became incredulous, asking, "You want me to offer myself up as a target, so that the dark lord might have a chance to strike at Malgus?! I will not!"

Ashara clarified, "Of course not! We shall be distractions to him. It may present the dark lord with a chance to find an opening in Malgus' defense for him to exploit."

Switching to the guard channel, Ashara contacted the pilots of the shuttles.

"Shuttle crew that landed to recover the servants of the dark lord, answer me."

"Talon One, my lord. What are your orders?"

"Ask Lord Xalek to switch to the guard channel, so that I may converse with him."

"As you command, my lord."

A couple of moments later, "This is Xalek. What do you want?"

Ashara replied caustically, "How long did you plan on hiding and sulking on that ship?!" She added, her tone dripping with derision, "Please don't tell me you were actually going to run and hide from Malgus?"

Xalek furiously bellowed, "YOU WILL REGRET YOUR INSULTS!"

Vereta couldn't see Ashara's smirk under her visored helmet, as the Togrutan switched back to Nox's restricted command channel and told her, "Give me a little space. Lord Xalek is furious. He might come at me, and I might need to duck and dodge him a bit until I can point him at Malgus."

Vereta remarked, "We cannot afford to be distracted. Lord Xalek isn't going to get in our way, is he?"

Ashara dodged left, away from Vereta as an unknown object came tumbling towards her. The object crashed against the crater wall and clattered to the crater floor. It was an Imperial blaster rifle, bent out of shape with pieces of it springing off of it as it tumbled to a stop.

Xalek, running at full tilt, launched himself in a flying leap at Ashara. He gave a furious shout, but his helmet conspired to hide his ferocious battle cry from everyone else, since it wasn't broadcast over the communications system. Xalek held his sabrestaff like a javelin as electricity arced in his free hand. Meanwhile, he caused a rock shard to launch at his rival's back.

It was an excellent technique. Distract an opponent from the front with a fearsome display, while sneaking an attack from behind with Force thrown objects, but Ashara Zavros had sparred with him many times in the past, and knew his moves. She reached behind herself and wrenched control of the flying rock shard from Xalek, and sent it flying towards Malgus instead. Malgus dodged the rock. Ignoring Ashara, he continued his conversation with Nox.

Ashara used The Force to pull her rival, Xalek, towards her and forced him to the ground six meters in front of her, using The Force this time to keep him planted to the surface. Xalek could not pick his feet up from the fractured rock on which he stood. He was trapped.

Ashara told him, "Good! You are in a fighting mood! Now, focus your rage at Malgus, but don't let your fury cause you to so easily lose control of your senses. See how easily I captured you? Go support the dark lord."

Xalek barked back, "Do not presume to lecture me, and do not order me around! When this is done, look to our own duel. I will finally end you!"

Ashara replied, "The dark lord will miss you, but if that is what you want, I will not stop you from dying at my hands."

Ashara released her rival, and Xalek took off running towards Nox, intending to fight two on one against Malgus. As he neared his master, he noted that the dark lord was on his hands and knees. He feared his lord was wounded, and hurried his steps to aid his master.

Instead of coming to his master's rescue, _he_ ended up dropping to his hands and knees, succumbing to the horrible crush of malign hatred blanketing the area around his enemy. He had entered a field of crushing darkness that filled him with such fear and plunging him into a terrible sense of dread. His breathing became quick and shallow, and sweat burst from his pores. It was all that he could do to keep his panicked mind from flying out of control.

Tears of abject woe gushed from his eyes as he cried out, "Master! What is this?!"

Nox replied, his own breathing was labored and his voice subdued.

"This is Malgus' power…," but then, despite his unreasoned fear, he added defiantly, "…, power that _I want!_ " After a pause to catch his breath, his voice betraying his weakness, he ever defiantly added, "Grow stronger with me, Lord Xalek! Use your fear! Turn it into hatred! Embrace this darkness and let it fuel your hatred of our enemy!"

Up until now, his master's communications with their hated enemy had been on an old guard channel which had been abandoned by the Imperial Army when it split into two factions at the start of the Imperial Civil War, which was why Xalek was shocked to hear Malgus' voice on Nox's restricted command channel.

"Lord Xalek, cast aside your old title. Join me, and receive a new title in my new empire. I will teach you more about The Force than your weak master can. Or would you rather die on your hands and knees?"

Xalek labored to lift his heavy hanging head to look at his master, and found Nox on his feet, standing strong with his ignited weapon in one hand, and his free hand balled into a fist.

Nox simply told Xalek, "Choose wisely, Lord Xalek. Whom will you serve?"

Xalek immediately heard the difference in Nox's voice. It was strong, and his master no longer labored to breathe. At that moment, Xalek realized that Nox had already overcome his terrible unreasoning fear, and that he had become stronger, overcoming Malgus' god-like power. Xalek resolved to follow Nox, choosing to defeat his own fear with hatred.

Xalek began his battle against Malgus' will. It started as a low growl of resentment. The growl grew in intensity, becoming fiercely defiant. With his defiantly fierce growl, Xalek's resolve also grew, and with his growing resolve, his anger took hold and quickly bloomed into _such hatred!_ Xalek roared out his hate filled fury as he fought the crush of darkness pressing against him and, rising to his feet as had his master, fought off Malgus' terrible control over his mind, body, and spirit.

He then turned to face Malgus, and raged at him.

"I WILL NEVER SERVE YOU! I WILL GROW STRONGER WITH MY MASTER, DARTH NOX!"

With that, Xalek unleashed a long torrent of Force Lightning at his enemy, which Malgus deflected using his lightsaber. Nox wasted no time, dashing forward with his own attack, to pierce through the deepening gouge on the back of Malgus' armor. As Nox neared his hated enemy, Xalek ended his Force Lightning attack, so that Nox would not get caught in it.

Malgus quickly pivoted, turning to face Nox just in time to deflect Nox's sabrestaff as he parried Nox's thrusting attack, now aimed at his belly. With both weapons occupied, crossing their cutting beams, Nox reached forward and placed his space suit gloved offhand on Malgus' armored breastplate. Just as Nox attacked with a focused blast of kinetic Force energy at Malgus' heart, Malgus sent a blast of kinetic Force energy outward, negating Nox's attack and sending his enemy flying backwards.

Malgus thought to leap into the attack at Nox, but found himself welded to the frozen rock floor of the crater. His boots were being held down with The Force. Malgus turned at the waste and blasted Ashara, several tens of meters behind him, with a blinding white bolt of Force Lightning.

Ashara, shocked at the distance that Malgus could accurately shoot Force Lightning, was very quick to react, catching the lightning attack using her blue lightsaber. In an instant, Ashara touched the tip of her blue saber, which caught the attack, to her red beamed weapon, near its hilt, and then touched the tip of her red saber to the rock floor, which allowed the current of Malgus' attack to flow into the rocky ground. She had done all of these movements so fast, that it could not be followed with the naked eye.

At that moment, Vereta, standing much closer to Malgus than Ashara, released a Force Lightning bolt attack at his back. Malgus twisted at his waste, facing the other way, and catching the Force Lightning bolt with his own saber, deflected the attack right back at Vereta. In a flash, however, Ashara leapt forward, at an angle towards Vereta, with her weapon extended and caught the Force Lighting bolt attack, in front of Vereta, this time using The Force to redirect the lightning to the crater floor, thus saving Vereta's life.

Ashara then bounded forward towards Malgus' back. He still couldn't move his boots off the rock surface without risking damage to his armored footwear, and he couldn't turn to face her attack. Malgus bent over backwards at the knees, suspending himself with The Force, and thrust his lightsaber at Ashara just before she could reach his vulnerably exposed back.

With her forward momentum, Ashara had no choice but to bound over him, using The Force to propel herself high above the reach of his extended weapon. However, Ashara had entered Malgus' field of hatred and corruption. She felt the maddening fear and panic which threatened to fog her mind in unreasoning terror, and she felt her body being crushed from all directions as she tumbled high above him. She began to lose focus, battling mightily to keep Malgus' boots firmly tethered to the rock surface.

Malgus, however, reached up for Ashara as she tumbled past high above him, and used The Force to grab her in mid-flight. He then swept his hand sideways and down towards the rock littered surface of the crater. Ashara, in his grip, changed direction, ninety degrees, in midair and followed the arc of his hand, smashing onto the crater floor. He then stood straight up again, as Ashara's grip on his boots was broken. Spinning about, pivoting on one foot, he swung his arm towards the crater wall, as though hurling a ball.

Ashara's winded body was thus thrown against the vertical rock surface, where she crashed limply against the crater wall and rebounded a short distance back, falling in a heap onto the crater floor. The Mandalorians watching the fight from the breach in the wall, and who'd been cheering Ashara on, let out a chorus of disheartened _oh_ 's, as their favorite underdog was finally defeated by their client's enemy.

Malgus felt himself being violently shoved forward, forcing him to take several stumbling steps forward as he tried to regain his balance. His toe got caught on a rock shard sending him tripping forward. Reflexively, he converted his forward fall into a forward roll, and ended up on a knee facing back at his attacker, reaching with his free hand.

It was Xalek who'd attacked that point in his armor which Nox and Ashara had been trying to penetrate.

Xalek cursed his own stupidity, " _Blast! Why didn't I go for the weak spot at the back of his neck?!_ "

That was all he had time to think, as Malgus blasted him with a blinding bolt of Force Lightning. Xalek's world went dark, as he felt flat onto his face. His weapon deactivated as it struck the rock surface clattering away from where he lay.

* * *

Skadge whooped loudly, and then shouted on Wrehn's private channel, "I got another one! Look at 'em run!"

Wrehn's team was forced to momentarily fall back as they regrouped. Once grouped, her team went back on the offensive. From the outset, when Wrehn began shooting, Tartan lost members of his team in ones and twos, leaving him with only himself and four others.

He cursed and groused to himself, " _Blasted she-nexu! Already took out over half of my people!_ "

On his platoon command channel, he told his remaining team mates, "We can't underestimate them. See what operating solo has got us?"

One of his men complained, "It's more like she started shooting before we could go over the ground rules."

Another of his team mates added, "At least she hasn't killed any of our people, but they're shooting at full power, like they _want_ to kill us! Hell, they're using grenades!"

Tartan gave his orders.

"We're going to go on the offensive. We'll finish this, here and now. If it goes into hand to hand combat, we'll have a better chance to break up their momentum and isolate them. We got the advantage in melee combat. Two of them are women."

One of his men objected, "They got that monster Houk with them. And have you forgot? One of those women is the Great Hunt Champion."

Another of his people laughed, adding, "It's more like _they_ have the advantage!"

Tartan cut in, telling his remaining men, "Look sharp! Here they come!"

* * *

Skadge observed, "I wish I had my blaster cannon. This would have been over a long time ago." A moment later he laughed, adding, "I'm glad I ain't got my blaster cannon with me. This would have been over a long time ago!"

Gault laughed, observing, "Gotta stretch out the fun times, right?"

Mako spoke excitedly, "I got it! I'm in!"

Wrehn spoke, "Tell me what you've got, Mako."

"They're gonna fight hand to hand!"

Torian Cadera called out, "There they are! Look sharp!"

A viscous grin exploded onto Wrehn's visage. Her cheek stung smartly, reminding her of what Nox had done to her face. She understood the kolto was starting to wear off, but she decided against administering another dose. She wanted her wits to remain sharp.

Wrehn growled out with grim determination, "Let them come!" Then she gave her orders, "Everybody, set your blast shields to full power, I'm gonna drop a concussion grenade in the middle of it all."

Gault complained, "Aw, not that! I hate that!"

Skadge pumped his fist in the air, shouting, "Yeah! Let's do it!

Mako asked, "Can I stay back until after the blast?"

Wrehn answered, "No-yeah. After the blast, start picking them off with your blaster rifle!"

Gault argued, "Hey! I'm the sniper, here! Let me stay back to pick them off!"

The Devaronian shook his head in disgust, within his helmet, but kept silent as Wrehn ordered, "Gault, you're moving forward with me, and that's the end of that discussion!

Torian shouted, "Let's go! Now! They're coming!"

Wrehn ordered, "Close in on the attack! Shoot as you scoot!"

* * *

Tartan shouted, "Here they come!" When he noticed one was not among them, he added, "The little one's stayed back! Find her then keep their team between her and us, so that she can't shoot!" Then he ordered, "Open fire! Close the distance to the foe!"

* * *

Both teams ran hard at each other while shooting. Their shots were wild, with only a few rock fragments getting hit, and most of the shots going either too high into the air or too low onto the shattered rock surface. When the two teams clashed, one of the renegade mercenaries had brought his weapon up over his head to slam his opponent with the butt of his weapon, but Skadge was too big, and much faster than he had expected.

Skadge swung from down low, leveraging his full weight, momentum, and the power assist of his powered armored suit. His balled armored fist, arcing upwards, caught the Mandalorian mercenary in the mid-section. The Mando mercenary flew up and over Skadge's head. The hapless mercenary crashed onto the rocky crater floor behind Skadge as the Houk darted for the next Mandalorian mercenary.

Gault complained, "Why couldn't I bring out my sniper rifle?! Why do I have to get in close and dirty with these turds?!"

Intending to flank the enemy team, he ducked around a large rock shard on the crater floor, but he suddenly found himself face to face with one of Wrehn's hired guns, apparently with the same idea in mind. Both immediately leveled their blaster rifles, point blank, at each others' opponent's midsection and fired a shot. Wrehn's hired gun missed. Gault didn't. The disbursing energies of Gault's blaster bolt knocked both the poor mercenary and Gault backwards away from each other. Both combatants slammed onto the rocky floor of the crater on their backs.

The mercenary writhed and kicked, while clutching at his midsection. His shield generator and armor saved his life, absorbing the majority of that energy blast, but enough residual energy remained to heat his armor to the point of giving him first and second degree burns to his abdomen and chest. Thankfully, his armor cooled very quickly in the super frigid atmosphere of Ilum, which greatly limited the extent of his burns.

Gault's armor did a better job of protecting him from the disbursing energies of his blaster bolt. He also saw his chance and lay still. He had no intention of getting mixed up in melee combat any more than he had to.

Mako screamed out, "Gault is down! Gault's down!"

The Devaronian felt guilty, listening to Mako become distressed, thinking to himself, " _Sorry, Mako, but I'm not gonna risk getting killed on my last day of work with this crew._ "

He'd become rankled at Wrehn's snarky comment.

"Gault, quit goofing off! Get back on your feet and get to work! I got your vitals displayed on my screen!"

Needless to say, he was displeased, as well as embarrassed.

As he rolled to his side, and got onto his hands and knees, he complained, "I'm not goofing off!" He got to his feet, adding, "I was just catching my breath! And let me add that you monitoring my vitals without telling me is an invasion of _my privacy!_ "

Wrehn explained, "I lied, Gault. I don't have your vitals. So your privacy is protected!" She laughed raucously at Gault's expense, adding, "This is the biggest payday you will ever make on my crew. I'm gonna be sure you earn your keep!"

Gault could only shake his head in disgust as he muttered obscenities under his breath.

Meanwhile, Torian had leapt into the air and landed a flying kick on his opponent's breast plate. The mercenary stumbled backwards until he lost his footing and crashed onto his back, but before he could get onto his feet again, he found himself looking straight into the muzzle of Torian's blaster rifle.

Torian menaced out the mercenary's choices.

"Give up or die. Which do you choose?"

The Mando fighter lay back onto the crater floor, speechless.

Torian wasn't satisfied with that and let his opponent know it, telling him, "I didn't hear you. I'll take your silence as your wish to die."

The Mando raised both hands placatingly and pleaded, "I know I'm beaten! I yield!"

Torian warned him, "Don't move from this spot. I'll make sure you die if you do."

The Mando fighter assured Torian, "I won't get up until it's all done!"

Tartan found himself with only one fighter remaining by his side. The two mercenaries looked around themselves and found all five of their opponents still on their feet, and slowly closing in on them both. Tartan's last remaining fighter cast aside his rifle and lay down.

Tartan tapped the helm of the surrendering fighter with the toe of his boot, and half jokingly cursed him, "Heh. Coward."

"Sorry Captain. We started eleven strong against five, and in no time at all, we're down to two. And they haven't lost a one. I say that means we're beat."

Tartan shook his head, disgusted at himself and at his team. He looked up at Wrehn's crew as they approached, walking the last few meters to where he stood. He knew which one of them, the only one with twin blaster pistols, was Yehw'reh'nomai.

He told her, "Your crew is sharp. It was our mistake to underestimate them."

Wrehn said nothing, as she gave her attention to adjusting the control settings on her twin blasters.

He went on, "I'm all that's left of the challenge. I ask that even as I acknowledge your team's victory, that you grant me the honor of single combat against you."

She raised her weapon, leveling it at his breastplate and replied, "Granted," whereupon she immediately let loose a single shot into his chest.

He was blown off of his feet and crashed onto his back. His shield generator was completely depleted by the shot, and the paint on his armor became scorched. He felt his chest warm up, where the remaining energies expended themselves on his armor. Unlike his subordinate, who suffered burns to his chest and midsection, he wore his thermal protective slip beneath his heavy armor. He believed the added bulk and discomfort was worth not getting burns, and it paid off.

His armor had saved him, but he still faced a furiously outraged opponent, and didn't expect to be spared. He was too weak, woozy, and wobbly to scramble to his feet, and ended up just lying on his back.

Wrehn walked up to the defeated Tartan and, pointing her other weapon at his visored face, declared furiously, "I _SOOO_ WANT TO KILL YOU!"

After a long silence she lowered her weapon, and speaking disgustedly told Tartan, "But I have a reputation to maintain."

Tartan's shaking voice came back, "I y-yield, g-Great Hunt ch-Champion."

Wrehn holstered her pistols, and announced, "Enough messing around! Get back to your posts!"

Torian pumped a fist into the air, letting out a big, "Whoop!"

Excited that his employer had chosen to end the challenge in such good form, he shouted exultantly, "HAIL YEHW'REH'NOMAI! HAIL THE GREAT HUNT CHAMPION!"

The shout was taken up by Tartan's defeated mercenaries, "HAIL YEHW'REH'NOMAI! HAIL THE GREAT HUNT CHAMPION!"

The other Mandalorians, who'd been watching the match, both on the perimeter out in the open rock strewn crater floor and from the breach in the crater's wall, cheered and fired their blasters into the black, star filled afternoon sky, filling it with many hundreds of blaster bolts of several different colors. They cheered Wrehn's victory, and cheered her forbearance. She chose not to slay their company commander, as was her right. They rather liked Captain Tartan.

"HAIL YEHW'REH'NOMAI! HAIL THE GREAT HUNT CHAMPION!"

* * *

Darth Nox had come to finally understand that the extreme cold had conspired against him this whole time.

He looked around the light flooded battleground at his defeated servants, and thought bitterly, " _All dead. The Force is with Malgus._ "

He seriously thought about escaping and instantly became infuriated at the fact that he would actually entertain such an idea. He spoke bitterly to his enemy.

"I and my servants have killed you several times over, Malgus. This cold saps the heat energy from our weapons and keeps your armor cold enough to make piercing it a real chore."

Then he growled out through clenched teeth, because admitting this truth struck him at his core.

"The Force is with _you_ , Malgus."

Darth Malgus knew full well that he would be rejected, but he made another attempt to recruit Nox anyway.

"Then you know you are beaten. Kneel before me and become my servant, Darth Nox. I shall strip you of your old title and grant you a new one in my new empire."

Nox had become livid on hearing those words.

His low voice quavered in rage as he shot back, "I would rather die a tortuous death than to kneel before you, worm!"

Vereta had been listening to the exchange between Nox and Malgus. She didn't want to die. She'd already been nearly killed twice. She realized how outmatched they all were in the face of Malgus' power, and she had ceased to believe that Nox could win.

She finally understood that Malgus had been redirecting only her Force Lightning attacks, back at her, because he had seen some flaw in the way that she carried out her attacks. She realized that until she figured out this flaw, she could never even hope to be a match for him.

Vereta knelt, declaring, "I yield to you, Emperor Malgus! I shall relinquish my title and serve you in your new empire!"

Nox looked at Vereta's space suited kneeling form and cursed her cowardice, telling her, "In the end you were utterly useless to me." Turning to face Malgus, he said, "You can have her. I have no need of her."

Malgus walked over to Vereta and said, "Thank you for your declaration, but I would have preferred it if you had made your decision to support me a bit sooner than this…," Malgus reached his offhand towards the surrendering Sith Lord and blasted Vereta, where she knelt, with a blinding bolt of Force Lightning, then told her dead body, "but I don't need you either."

The juggernaut warrior turned about to face Nox and said, "I thank you for paying me the courtesy of allowing me to complete my business with my servant."

Nox tsked disgustedly and chiding himself, said, "Blast! My mind is wandering! I wasted a perfectly good opportunity to stab you in the back."

As he re-ignited his lightsaber, with Nox following suit, Malgus retorted, "And here I thought I could think you had died with some honor, but it was just a lapse that caused you to miss a chance to be underhanded before I killed you."

Nox dashed forward in the attack, discharging a bolt of Force Lightning at Malgus' helmeted head. Malgus raised his weapon and deflected it, while countering with a Force Lighting attack of his own. Nox used his own weapon to defend against Malgus' attack. Nox, then lifted his weapon to block Malgus' powerful downward swing of his weapon.

As soon as the two weapons clashed, Nox bent to his knee under the weight of Malgus' blow. Malgus instantly brought his weapon back up for another strike, believing that Nox was seeking death in battle. However, Nox reached forward with his free hand, and as soon as it touched Malgus' armored knee, he blasted it with a powerful and sharply focused wave of Kinetic Force energy, crushing his enemy's knee within his armored legging.

Nox rolled forward as Malgus screamed out his agony and collapsed to his hands and his one good knee. Nox immediately stood and turned to face his enemy. Using The Force, Nox blasted Malgus with Force Push, flattening Malgus face down onto the rock floor at the bottom of the crater. Nox then leapt high into the air and came down over Malgus' exposed back.

The dark lord drove his sabrestaff into the gouge he and his servants had been digging out of Malgus' armor. His weapon had finally pierced through the tough, cortosis and cold-reinforced armor. It burned through his spine, scorching into his enemy's internal organs, and after boiling through his belly from the inside, finally came to a stop at the inside of the front of Malgus' armor.

He wrenched his weapon's cutting beam out of his enemy's back and, holding it up to the black, star filled afternoon sky, roared ferociously in victory. At that moment, hundreds of blaster bolts of various colors, blue, red, yellow, orange, and green rose up through the black afternoon Ilum sky. It was as though colored rain were falling up towards the heavy dusting of stars. Nox's rush of victory was magnified by this glorious display of colors racing to the stars.

With his remaining strength, however, Malgus managed to roll onto his side, and pointing his unsteady hand at Nox, standing over him in exaltation, blasted his conqueror with a bolt of Force Lighting.

Nox was struck by the attack, but his shield generator absorbed much of the energy before being depleted. Nox didn't realize he'd been struck in an attack until he found himself on his back, wondering why there were so many stars swimming around among the stars littering the black afternoon sky.

He quickly sprang onto his feet, and looked about, woozily and wobbly, until he found Malgus lying on his side on the shattered deeply frozen rock of the crater floor. With Malgus dead, and his victory sealed, his mind was freed to remember his followers and his wife, Ashara. Looking about, he saw Xalek sitting silently on a rock shard, facing towards Nox and his defeated foe, Malgus.

Nox turned towards the crater wall, and found Ashara piled in a heap on the crater floor near the wall. Ashara hadn't moved since getting thrown into it by Malgus.

Feeling a pang of worry, Nox called to her, "Ashara?"

He walked towards her, his steps becoming increasingly hurried, as he called out again, "Ashara?!"

Nox fired off another blast of Force Lighting at Magus' corps as he rushed passed the unmoving traitor, to be sure his foe was dead, as he ran towards Ashara's still and crumpled form.

He called out again, "Ashara!"

Nox carefully untangled her body, piled against a rock shard near the crater wall, and carefully stretched her out on her back. Hope came back to him as he watched her struggle to move her hand to point at the side of her helmet. Her comm gear had been damaged. She signaled she could receive but not transmit. He was overcome with great relief that the worst had not occurred.

Nox cut out his communications gear, then touching his helmet to hers, asked, "Ashara, what are your injuries?"

Ashara's voice came back through the vibrations of the two helmets against each other. She sounded in obvious pain.

"Sore all over, my ribs hurt, maybe some are broken. My arm hurts. It's probably broken. Maybe I have a broken leg, too, my lord." Then she asked, "My lord, did you defeat your enemy?"

Nox told Ashara, "I'll activate your medi-aid system."

"Yes, please."

Nox pushed a few buttons of her space suit's controls under a panel on her forearm. The built in medi-aid system administered a large dose of kolto.

After a short time, Nox touched his helmet to Ashara's again, and asked, "How's that? Do you need another dose?"

"This is fine, my lord."

Nox told her, "Malgus is dead. We have won."

"I wish I could hear the celebrations when you announced it to the Empire."

"You are the first I have told, and you make a good point. I should tell the rest of the Sith Empire, and put a stop to the civil war."

Nox stood and turned to face Malgus' dead body again. He saw Xalek standing over Malgus' defeated form. On the general command channel, Nox made the announcement.

"Malgus the Betrayer is dead. The False Emperor is destroyed, killed by _my_ hand. Long live the true Emperor, Vitiate!"

Colonel Fruntz's excited voice returned, "Long live the true Sith Emperor! Well done, Dark Lord! I'll get this news reported across the empire immediately! Again, Dark Lord, congratulations on your hard fought victory!"


	12. Tributes, Payments, and Celebrations

Tributes, Payments, and Celebrations

The Imperial Army forces, loyal to the Dark Council and to the legitimate Sith Emperor, had cleared some of the rubble at the bottom of the crater and established a temporary command center in a prefabricated insulated building. It was easier to build the temporary headquarters inside the crater. Outside the rim of the crater was a ring of rubble and dust completely unsuitable for building anything on top of. It was a wonder Nox's forces were not buried under the literal mountain of rubble that settled around the crater for kilometers.

In addition to several prefabricated barracks, hasty field prisons, and two field hospitals under assembled nearby, an expedient field hospital was built into the temporary headquarters. Wrehn sat reclined in an exam chair with a surgical grade droid hovering over her, repairing the considerable damage done to her face.

The droid praised her, "The kolto you self administered, along with the topical ointment you applied to your wound, helped to keep the inflammation to your face down, and it helped to keep infection from setting in. You have done well, Patient 2461-KR32."

Wrehn had refused to give the droid her name. She'd been in that chair for nearly an hour when the droid completed its surgical repairs.

The surgical grade medical droid told her, "You will regain full use of the muscles in your cheek. However, the wound will scar. You may wish to seek elective surgeries to repair the scaring that will result. So, follow up with your favorite medical treatment facility at your leisure."

The droid inspected the micro sutures before spraying a thin coating of an ointment that promoted fast healing, and then applied an adhesive antibacterial bandage which also promoted rapid healing to her left cheek, completing Wrehn's medical treatment.

The surgical grade medical droid stepped back, allowing Wrehn to get up from the exam chair. She walked to the sections of her powered armored suit, piled on the floor at the side of the room, and began to suit up. Mako helped Wrehn to get the suit assembled with her boss inside of it, and helped with the suit systems diagnostics and safety checks after powering up the suit. Picking their helmets up off the floor, the two women stepped to the door holding their helmets in their hands.

Wrehn said, "Thanks for your help, Mako. I'm glad to have the armor back on. It's kind of chilly in here."

"Yeah, sure. Glad to help. That bastard really did a job on your face. Should we _do_ something about him?"

"Nah. It was my fault. I knew his people were watching, and I tried to make him look like any stupid ol' client."

Changing the subject, Mako complained, "My face is freezing!"

The climate controls for the prefabricated building heated the interior to just over nineteen degrees Celsius. The army engineers were still working on increasing the heat.

Wrehn and Mako stepped out of the treatment room and stomped down the hall towards the med center exit. The two women stepped through the sliding doors and into the main corridor. Torian, Skadge, and Gault were in the corridor, waiting. They picked their helmets up from the floor and accompanied Wrehn as she made her way to the conference room on the headquarters side of the prefabricated structure.

Skadge told Torian, "I don't see no difference. These guys were smart. They knew when to quit. Them other scrubs were dumb. They didn't get a clue, and I _had_ to kill 'em."

Gault added unhelpfully, "Torian, when Skadge's argument makes more sense than your argument, then you have to know that your argument really stinks."

Torian countered, "That was a different sport, with different rules!"

Skadge pointed out, "I followed the rules. I quit when I was beat. And the rules said I could keep my money. So, I did, and they booed the hell out of me instead of cheering the winner!" He added, as though revealing a bit of wisdom, "They were dumb, Torian."

Torian shook his head in frustration and spoke disgustedly, "You'll never understand. You're…"

Wrehn cut in, asking in surprise, "You guys still on about that?"

Gault filled her in, "Skadge made a good point, comparing his matches on Mandalore and this match we had a few hours ago."

Skadge cut in, "These guys were smart. They quit when they was beat, not like them other scrubs."

Mako chimed in, "Give it up, Torian. That ' _die honorably when you don't have to_ ' crap is just pathetically stupid."

Torian stopped in his tracks, clearly angered.

He told Mako, "You don't understand because you aren't Mandalorian."

Wrehn stopped and turned to face Torian adding her two credits.

"I'm Mandalorian, and _I_ don't get it."

Torian pursed his lips, forcing himself to keep silent. He didn't want to tell Wrehn what he really thought about _her_ being ' _Mandalorian_.'

She turned and proceeded down the hall with her crew following. Rounding the corner, the group saw a door guarded by two Imperial Army soldiers.

Stopping before the helmeted armed guards, Wrehn told them, "I'm Yehw'reh'nomai. The, uh, dark lord wants us here for the debrief."

One of the guards motioned the group in while the other guard pushed a contact, causing the door to slide open on the left side of a huge meeting hall.

The expansive and brightly lit conference room, with off white painted metal wall panels and light grey painted metal floor and ceiling tiles, was filled with armored Imperial Army officers cradling their helmets in their arms. The dull roar of many voices filled the air as many dozens of conversations and impromptu meetings were held. Wrehn and her crew stomped their way to the back of the room, to their right and, upon reaching the back of the conference room, leaned against the wall after setting their oversized helmets down on the floor.

A short while later, the door Wrehn and her crew had just entered slid open; a soldier marched in and, stomping his armored boot on the metal floor, snapped to attention and shouted, "The dark lord approaches!"

The door slid shut again as the room crashed into silence.

Suddenly, the room became filled with the cacophony of stomping armored boots as officers rushed to their places and Colonel Fruntz ordered stentoriously, "Command! Fall in!"

The officers, already moving into position, quickly arranged themselves into ranks and files standing at attention.

The door slid open again, and the soldier shouted, "The dark lord enters!"

Colonel Fruntz shouted, "Command! Salute!"

Carrying their helmets and still wearing their metallic silver-colored space suits showing signs of recent combat, abrasions, cracks, gouges, and scorch marks, Darth Nox and his apprentice, Lord Xalek, entered the conference room. They turned to their left, walking briskly to the front of the conference room. Xalek turned towards the left and walked to the corner of the conference room, while Nox walked to the back of the only military office furniture in the large space, which was centered at the front of the meeting hall.

Stepping behind the metal army field desk, Nox set his helmet on the left side of it, as he took his seat on the metal army field chair behind the desk. Xalek stood in the corner of the room, behind Nox to his right, with his helmet set on the floor at his feet.

The sixty men and women of the Imperial Army command staff all stood at attention while saluting with their right hands and cradling their helmets in their left arms. They stood in ranks and files with the senior most ranking officers standing in the front ranks.

At the side of the room, opposite from the sliding doors, was a long range intra-galactic holo-transceiver. Projected at one quarter scale above the device, was the holographic image of a formation of admiral ranked officers, also standing at attention in ranks and files and saluting. The admiral officers were aboard the flagship of the fleet of Imperial Navy warships in orbit over Ilum. This fleet was loyal to the legitimate Sith Emperor and thus supported Nox's operations on Ilum.

Way in the back of the conference room, Wrehn and her crew continued to lean against the back wall, feeling no need to stand at attention with the Imperial army and navy officers.

After scanning the faces of the men and women arrayed before him with his eyes, and with The Force, Nox finally waved his acknowledgment of their salute.

Colonel Fruntz ordered, "End salute!"

The command staff officers in the room, and the admirals on holo, all snapped their arms back down to their sides.

Nox spoke a single command.

"At ease."

The officers relaxed their stance, but remained silent.

"Colonel Fruntz, report."

Colonel Fruntz stomped his boot as he snapped back to attention and said, "Dark Lord! Before I begin my report, may I recommend that we clear the mercenaries from the conference room? There are many details in the report that are secret, and…"

Nox interrupted.

"Noted."

He commanded.

"Yehw'reh'nomai, step forward. I'll conclude my business with you, first."

Wrehn signaled her crew to stay put as she walked alone to Nox's desk. Her heavy powered armored suit assisting her movements, she stomped across the metal floor until she came to a stop before his desk.

Nox asked, "Have you thought of a tribute for me?"

Wrehn blinked. Confusion expressed in her eyes.

"Huh?"

Nox seemed surprised as he asked, "Did you forget what we discussed on the shuttle ride to here? I told you to think of a tribute to appease my anger."

Wrehn tilted her head in genuine surprise, as she asked, "You're still mad about that?" Belatedly adding, "Uh… Dark Lord."

"Well what did you think I called you up here, for?"

"Um, to pay up? You owe me three hundred million credits, and I'm not giving you that as tribute, Dark Lord."

Mako rolled her eyes and shook her head, thinking angrily, " _She learns nothing!_ "

Wrehn suggested, "How about I do another job for you, and charge half price? Only one job at half price, though. All other jobs after that, I'll charge regular rates."

Nox looked at Wrehn in wonderment and shook his head in disbelief. Suddenly, he burst out laughing. His laughter subsided after a moment, and he complemented Wrehn.

"You _are_ fearless! You know what I can do to you. That wound on your cheek is nothing." Nox pointed to his right, adding, "My apprentice is seething with fury. He's barely containing himself. He wants me to order him to slay you where you stand. You know all this. You know how it will end if I grant his wish, yet you stand there, defiant!"

Wrehn gulped back her fear, remaining silent.

Nox told her, "I can feel your fear of me, but I can also feel your resolve not to bend to me."

Wrehn said, "Yeah. My line of work is dangerous. Sometimes the hardest part is getting the client to pay up after a job's done. It usually ends up in a fight, but after I kick the crap out of 'em, they pay up, though. But I know you're not like that. Being a dark lord and all of that, you wouldn't want it getting around that you don't pay your bills. You have a reputation to protect and all of that."

Xalek took his weapon into his hand and pleaded, "Please, Master, let me kill her!"

Nox flicked his finger and Wrehn's bandage ripped from her face, exposing the healing scar that remained on her face after her initial treatment. Wrehn was surprised by this and flinched. The disturbance to her wound sharply stung her cheek, but she stifled back a yelp. She could feel fresh hot blood run down her cold cheek, down to her jaw line, and then down her throat.

Nox observed, "Our medical droids do good work. Don't they?"

Wrehn kept silent.

After some thought, Nox nodded as though coming to a decision and announced, "That shall be your tribute to me, the scar I gave you. Every time I hire you for a job, I want to see that scar, so don't heal it any further. Leave the scar on your cheek. If you heal it, I shall have you hunted down and killed."

Wrehn knew if she refused, Nox, his apprentice, and every officer in the room would attack her and her crew. She knew she was seriously outnumbered.

Her stubborn pride got in the way of good sense, however. Not wanting to appear cowed, Wrehn spoke facetiously. She attempted to make a mockery of Nox's demands.

"Oh, yeah. A keepsake from our good times together. Something to remind me of you every time I look in the mirror, yeah? O.K., let's go with that. I'm sure it'll make you feel big every time you see it on my face. Yeah?"

Nox's furious eyes bore into Wrehn's eyes, as sweat began to bead on her forehead.

The Chiss bounty hunter and mercenary thought to herself, " _Blast it, Wrehn! Shut your damned mouth already!_ "

In the back of the room, Gault and Mako had their faces buried in the palms of their hands, as they shook their heads in disapproval. Torian tensely swept his eyes across the Imperial officers' backs, looking for signs that a fight was about to break out, while Skadge merely wore a smirking grin of amusement.

Xalek, becoming extremely incensed, shook his weapon in great frustration, but kept silent as he waited in vain for his master to give him the word.

Meanwhile, after a brief surge of rage, during which he restrained his impulse to blast the mercenary with Force Lightning, Nox replied frostily, "Yeah."

He didn't understand why he should spare this mercenary, but his wife and apprentice, Ashara Zavros was quite adamant about her visions granted her, via The Force, that Wrehn's long term usefulness to him would outweigh her obstinate nature. Nox considered that Ashara hadn't given him any faulty advice since he'd taken her captive, and whom he'd later fallen in love with and married, and Ashara had shown every indication of her unyielding support to his cause. In the end, Nox decided to trust Ashara and put up with Wrehn's willfulness.

To Xalek's consternation, Nox told Wrehn, still in that frosty tone, "Good. So we are in agreement. The scar on your cheek is your tribute to me."

Immediately, he pulled out his datapad and typed something on it.

Then he asked, "Where should I deposit this three hundred million?" He added, "I feel like I'm the blind being robbed, here. Don't think I'll pay such exorbitant prices again."

Wrehn was completely taken off guard, she stammered, "Well, uh... Um...," before taking out her own datapad and forwarding her business account details, for this transaction, to his datapad.

Nox fiddled with his datapad a bit more after that, before securing it to his utility belt. Shortly, thereafter, Wrehn's data pad vibrated. She read the message on it.

"From: Cignos Statti Bank of Nar Shaddaa. To: Yehw'reh'nomai. Esteemed banking customer, 300,000,000 credits, Imperial currency, have been deposited to your account, which is 278,952,312 credits, Hutt currency, and bringing your total to 967,790,462 credits, Hutt currency. Have a bountiful day!"

Securing her datapad in it's compartment on her utility belt, Wrehn put on her best customer service smile, and declared, "It's been a real pleasure doing business with you, Dark Lord! If there's nothing further for us to discuss, I'd like to take my leave, since our business is now concluded."

Nox, amazed at her complete change in attitude, replied simply, "Yes. You may go."

Xalek's shoulders slumped as his arms relaxed down along his sides, and his head tilted downward. He was greatly displeased, but he kept his thoughts about his master's decision to let her go unpunished to himself. His eyes seething with fury followed Wrehn as she happily turned about and stomped her way to the back of the conference room.

Wrehn picked her helmet up from the floor and signaled her team to follow her out of the conference room. The five mercenaries stomped their way to the side sliding door and exited the large meeting hall.

* * *

Two Galactic Standard weeks later, Wrehn, dressed in civilian attire, was sitting in her guest officer's quarters aboard the _Razor's Edge_ , which was in orbit over Mandalore's moon. The _Razor's Edge_ was the frigate Wrehn had hired out from the _Mandalore's Hammer Naval Group_. She sat behind her desk enjoying a drink with Captain Tartan and Commander Grommy, the frigate's commanding officer. The three Mandalorian mercenaries celebrated the successful and profitable completion of a major contract.

Wrehn's two subcontractors had been paid in accordance to the agreements in their contracts, and her subcontractors were very happy. Neither of them knew how much Wrehn had made from this job, however. Had they known, they most certainly would have attempted to renegotiate their contracts. Renegotiations among Mandalorians usually involved a few battles. However, since they didn't know how much Wrehn had made from this job, no battles had broken out.

Wrehn's crew, also in civilian attire, had been busy loading their weapons, gear, and armor into a dropship of Mandalorian design, which would ferry them down to the surface of Concordia, planet Mandalore's moon. Tartan's company had also packed up their gear. They were loading it all unto two other dropships that would ferry them down to the surface of Mandalore after the Razor's Edge had established its orbit over the planet.

Wrehn told Commander Grommy, "I'll keep your contact information. You never know when you have to transport a bunch of rowdy fighters to another job. Just don't expect to get paid as much."

Grommy replied, "It was a civil war. Prices go up for everything."

Tartan added his observation, "At least we didn't have to fight our own on this job, just the Imps."

Wrehn added snarkily, "What do you mean? You picked a fight with another Mando down there and nearly got your men killed over it."

Tartan, shook his head in frustration and in disgust at how that had turned out for him.

Before Grommy could ask, Tartan told him.

"Me and some of my troops wanted a bit of sport, so we challenged the Great Hunt Champion to a match. She fights hard and dirty."

Wrehn asked, surprised, "Is there any other way to fight?"

An over head chime sounded out a signal.

Commander Grommy told Wrehn, "Your dropship's loaded and your crew's aboard."

The three stood on their feet, shook hands all around, genuinely smiling at each other.

As Wrehn left the table, she told Captain Tartan, "You've got a decent crew. I got your contact information too. I hope you don't mind doing business with me again."

He replied, smiling proudly, "I'd be honored, Great Hunt Champion."

* * *

On the launch pad on Concordia, Wrehn told the short, slightly built cybernetically enhanced human female, "Hey, Mako, get us a ground crew to unload the gear and move it all to a temporary staging area, then hire a transport cargo speeder to take it to the ship at the shipyard."

"You got it, Boss."

Although, Mako didn't seem to be doing anything, she used her cybernetically enhanced direct connection to the Holo-Net to find the cheapest labor and transport on Concordia. Then she filled out an electronic order form for services from each company and paid the deposit for each company.

All this, while she held Torian's hand and whispered in his ear, "I want you, SO bad."

Torian smiled at her and gave her a quick kiss on her lips.

Wrehn looked at her crew affectionately, and decided to make a speech.

"You guys rock. You make me look real good. You made me crazy rich. I'm gonna pay you fifty million each." She added quickly, "That's final. Not negotiable."

Mako quipped, "Hell! I could retire on this!" and instantly regretted it when she realized Wrehn was eyeing Gault.

Wrehn, looking straight into Gault's eyes replied to Mako's quip, "Yep. You sure can, if that's what you want."

Gault turned to look at Torian, and asked, "You gonna retire?"

"Nah. I'm young, strong. Have lot of fight left in me. I'm sticking around."

Gault asked the Houk, "How about you, Skadge?"

The Houk replied, laughing, "Retire? Ha! This job's too much fun! I ain't quitting!"

Before Gault could ask Mako, Wrehn cut in with her own question.

"How about you, Gault? You gonna call it a career?"

The Devaronian cast his eyes downward, developing a slight melancholy look on his face, and said, "Yeah. I am."

Wrehn opened her mouth to speak. She was about to ask him to reconsider. Seeing that Wrehn was about to speak, Gault chose that moment to cut her off. He figured out what she was thinking; he could see it in her eyes. Gault knew what she was about to say, but he spoke up with a sad smile on his face.

"In about ten or so years, I'll quit. As long as you keep pulling in the jobs with the big paydays, I'll stick around to get my cut of the action."

The melancholy was gone, replaced by an impish grin.

Mako hopped up and down, happily clapping her hands together.

Torian, smiling broadly, clapped Gault on the back of his shoulder and said something in Mando'a, then explained, "That means, "A Warrior knows when he's had enough glory, and when he wants more of it!"

Wrehn shook her head smiling at Gault, thinking, " _Blast him! That scoundrel almost made me make a fool of myself again!_ "

Gault observed, "Torian, remember, say it in Basic the first time, every time."

Torian laughed merrily, declaring, "I'll teach you to speak Mando'a, yet!"

Skadge, thinking to poke fun of Wrehn, said, "Wrehn, now you can fix your hunk of junk ship! Ha! Ha!"

She told him, "By the time I'm done with its overhaul and refit, it's going to be the fastest starship in the galaxy!" She squealed with glee, adding, "I'm gonna splurge on my baby!"

The End


End file.
